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#blackedu Frances E. Hughes and Lois A. Brown Nieces of Hallie Quinn Brown Black is really beautiful! "The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives." --Albert Einstein

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Dear Ms. Honourable Lois Brown, [email protected] [email protected], Mr. Honourable Peter Braid, [email protected] [email protected]

                  My name is Nicole Kwapis, I am currently a second year Bachelor of Business Administration student. I'm writing to you today because I recently learned of some proposed changes to bill C-11 that would make it frighteningly similar to the SOPA and PIPA bills that were protested in the United States. Let me start off by saying that many Canadians protested those American bills, for fear of being affected by them, should they pass. I was one of them. Now to learn that our own country would even consider such draconian measures horrified me and prompted me to learn all I could about just what was going on.

                  As I'm sure you're well aware, some of the changes propose blocking user access to websites that enable or proliferate pirating behaviour, as well as having ISPs (internet service providers) cut off the internet access of repeat downloaders. First of all, blocking access to specific sites is censorship no matter how you word it, putting aside the fact that censorship of content should not be found in a first world country, it will never stop piracy. In fact I believe it would hardly hinder it at all. In order to better explain what I mean, let me first inform you of just who the downloaders and pirates are. 

                                Those who provide the content in the first place are usually those with the highest technical know-how. They are capable of breaking whatever the current protection the creator of a product may use, in order to reproduce and redistribute the product indefinitely. Here lies the first problem I have with anti-piracy legislation. Many might argue that the creator of a product should have no reason to protect it. Unfortunately we do not live in such an idealistic society, and for the same reason that you may put your most valuable belongings in a safe, the creator of a product must also protect their work. Undoubtedly there has been quite the back and forth between the two parties as each time new protection is created it is inevitably broken and needs to be replaced with something newer. Recently, however it seems that those creating the product have all but given up, and now want not to protect their product but punish those that use it (which are not those that are "stealing" it from them in the first place). The saying goes that the best offence is having the best defence and they seem to have forgotten that, arguing that they fight a losing battle. Of course the battle they fight is a losing one, technology is always changing, and always has been changing, and yet creators tend to fight tooth and nail to impede it. When film was introduced it was called the death of theatre. When television was introduced it was called the death of cinema. When the VCR became a common household item that was capable of recording programs, the entertainment industry recoiled in horror claiming that this would be the death of them. The same was said about cassette tapes, and much more recently DVRs. If you hadn't noticed, the entertainment industry is just fine, and is in fact larger than it ever was before.

                  Now of course these proposed changes have the hardest hit on the end user, the downloader, and not the uploader who put the content on the web in the first place. Who are these horrible, despicable pirates? The majority of downloaders, or pirates, are under age 20 (I unfortunately forget where I read this, but it was about 3 months ago so I'm certain the numbers haven't changed by much). This means it's your kids and their friends who are being prosecuted, who coincidentally, are also the single largest market for the music and entertainment industries as a whole. There have even been studies done that prove that those that pirate the most, also buy the most. According to a study commissioned by the MPAA (The main lobbyist for SOPA/PIPA in the United States) compared to those that solely purchase music, pirates are:

> 31% more likely to buy single tracks online. > 33% more likely to buy music albums online. > 100% more likely to pay for music subscription services. > 60% more likely to pay for music on mobile phone.

                Pirates spend more money on music than their non-pirate counterparts

Source: http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/Jupiter_Research_study_on_online_piracy.pdf

                  From the software perspective similar stories are told. The most pirated program is Abobe's Photoshop CS with 16,990 downloads at any given time. Yet almost counter intuitively a study by the SSRC (Social Science Research Council) credits software piracy as the key to the company's 3.1 billion dollar revenue stating that: "Piracy crowds out competitors" and "Helps maintain Adobe's tools as standards".

Source: http://piracy.ssrc.org/adobe-logic/

                  Having explained just who it is that pirates, and how this pirating affects the victims, I can move on to discuss just how these proposed additions to Bill C-11 will affect these people. Censorship will hardly stop pirates. Suppose that the PirateBay.org is blocked. Using the system proposed by SOPA I could easily still access the site by merely typing in their IP address (194.71.107.15) instead of the URL. That's only a one time inconvenience. So, ok, then the actual IP gets blocked to combat that. What's stopping them from making another site? Another two sites? Another dozen sites? You stop nothing, and now must live with the fact that you censor your people like a third world dictatorship would.

                  My largest concern lies with the proposition to give ISPs the duty and ability to disconnect repeat offenders. These "offenders" are your kids. They just wanted the latest songs by their favourite artist, and because they probably don't have access to a credit card they really had no other option to get that music on their iPod. To them it's a question of convenience, not cost. If it was easier to drive down to the nearest HMV and buy the CD, they would. Unfortunately it's not, and the choices left are getting the song illegally or not getting it at all. So now they get caught, and it turns out that they had also downloaded another song a month ago. So they are now cut off from the internet. The internet access they are using is hardly theirs though; they aren't the ones paying for it, so the whole household now lose their access as well. What about in a family where the breadwinner works from home, and their entire income is possible only because they have internet access? How does this transfer to a business such as an internet cafe? What about schools?

                  I haven't even mentioned net neutrality, or the biggest issue; the UN declaring access to the internet a human right. Their report states:

While blocking and filtering measures deny users access to specific content on the Internet, states have also taken measures to cut off access to the Internet entirely. The Special Rapporteur considers cutting off users from internet access, regardless of the justification provided, including on the grounds of violating intellectual property rights law, to be disproportionate and thus a violation of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

  The Special Rapporteur calls upon all states to ensure that Internet access is maintained at all times, including during times of political unrest. In particular, the Special Rapporteur urges States to repeal or amend existing intellectual copyright laws which permit users to be disconnected from Internet access, and to refrain from adopting such laws.

Source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/

                  Would we as a nation violate a UN sanctioned human right, because lobbyists claim that it lowers the bottom line for the companies they represent? If we do, then I'll be ashamed to be called a citizen of such a country.

                  Long story short; no one wins. My generation and the generations after mine get harshly prosecuted and demonized for an activity that really does not hurt anyone. The entertainment and software industries will alienate their largest markets, attacking them instead of welcoming them. But most importantly our government will waste precious resources prosecuting the youth of our country for what is otherwise a near petty crime, when the same resources could be put towards improving our economy, or better yet, improving our healthcare and social services. My largest concern is why we are wasting our time with this? You wouldn't fine or jail your mother for recording her favourite episode of M*A*S*H would you? Have you never ripped or burned a CD? Online file sharing is no different.

    Yours Sincerely,

  Nicole Kwapis

Student

Internet User