IP: Canadian Internet Perspective

[Dave Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

From: "Robert Fabian" <rfabian@interlog.com>
To: Dave Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>




Dave


Today's Globe & Mail (our cross between the NYTimes and the Wall 
Street Journal) has an interesting lead editorial on the Internet. 
The URL is:


http://www.globeandmail.ca/forum/commentary.html


What follows is a direct quote from that source. I'm reproducing it 
because the editorial content of that page changes from day to day. 
Today's content:


Wednesday, February 07 1996


Sending the cops onto the
Internet 


YOU can read this editorial free, along with the one below it,
if you own a computer that's connected to the Internet. Go
ahead, try it. Look for the Globe and Mail home page on the
World Wide Web (http://www.TheGlobeAndMail.com) and
eventually you'll run across this commentary, on a stylish
background, with a funny little picture beside it. You can
read it to your heart's content, as many times as you like,
until tomorrow's editorials take its place. 


But what if you went a little further than just reading? 


What if you copied those editorials onto your computer's
hard drive (which can be done at the push of a button) and
saved them for future reference? What if you E-mailed one or
two of them to interested friends and colleagues? What if
you reproduced them to illustrate a point in a "posting" on a
discussion group - a newsgroup, listserver or some other
forum? What if you placed them inside a web page that
promoted your company or political party? What if, instead
of reproducing them, you used a "hot link" - a button that
sends readers to The Globe's page? 


At some point you'd be breaking the law. According to
court interpretations, any of the acts listed above could be
considered unlawful under Canada's copyright laws. But
people become uncomfortable when authorities start
busting their fellow citizens for some of the more benign
acts. Where do you draw the line? Where should Canadian
authorities draw the line? 


The Internet, believe it or not, is used by the vast majority of
people as a forum for education, discussion and the
dissemination of ideas - and not as a vast black market for
stolen software, plagiarized products and dark secrets. Any
regulation of content on the Internet, whether through the
forthcoming revision of Canada's copyright laws or through
more direct acts, should be based on the assumption that
most acts are benign. Rigorous regulation, zealous policing
and undue restrictions on the Net will have the same effect
as they would on telephone conversations or public
discussions. To protect the beneficial uses of this new
technology, a few principles should be kept in mind: -A
public forum. Some legal officials would declare everything
on the Net a "publication," like a magazine or a journal. While
some things clearly are - promotional web pages, for
instance - most public-access points should be defined less
restrictively, like a public square or, in the words of Mr.
Justice John Sopinka of the Supreme Court of Canada, like
posters on a lamppost. -The owner's prerogative. Robbing a
bank is illegal. This does not mean that banks can leave
their money lying around. If they did, and subsequently got
robbed, they could not expect the police to help them. The
same principle should apply to owners of intellectual
property on the Internet: It should be their prerogative to
protect their materials. An enormous variety of
technological means now exist to keep proprietary
information in the hands of its owners and buyers:
encoding, encryption, firewalls, passwords. The simple
reproduction of something (without any financial gain)
should not be defined as a crime unless that something has
been clearly packaged as a commodity and carries a price.
-Presumed innocent. The act of "browsing" - reading files,
postings and other materials - should not be confused with
"reproducing," even if the technical differences are slight. 


It should be assumed that the Net is a library, not a
bookstore. Theft and fraud should not be tolerated, but
private access without financial gain is at the heart of
intellectual freedom.