Evan Crothers

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Hello,

I'm writing regarding the upcoming plan to revive the "FairPlay" legislation, which — from my own background in the public service and PhD research — I believe to be highly detrimental to Canada's digital ecosystem. I have full agreement with the below message, and would like our leaders to think very critically about the vested interests that existing established companies have in pushing this legislation (who have also pushed for backwards technological development to the detriment of Canada's national security, such as mandated usage of unsecure DNS requests) and instead focus on a more modern and reasonable approach to the Internet.

As a concerned individual in Canada, I am emailing to submit my comment to the "Consultation on a Modern Copyright Framework for Online Intermediaries."

I am strongly opposed to any measures that would block access to websites, or encourage penalizing or disconnecting Internet users on the grounds of copyright. These are disproportionate, unjustified measures highly open to abuse.

Research suggests copyright infringement is a small and shrinking problem in Canada; when rights holders provide access to their content at a fair price, the overwhelming majority of Canadians choose to pay for it.

Meanwhile, the expression and human rights consequences of this proposal are serious. If 'safe harbour' protections that protect intermediaries like libraries and ISPs from being sued by rights holders are reduced, and they are encouraged to make their own policies for addressing copyright infringement, the logical response for most service providers will be minimizing their risk by aggressively blocking content and disconnecting users. Not only will this lead to much lawful content and mixed use platforms being blocked; it also means that since many communities in Canada have only one viable ISP, the government is sentencing entire households in Canada to complete disconnection of an essential service for the crime of an alleged copyright violation on their Internet service – all outside of any proper judicial process.

Furthermore, the costs of a complex blocking system will be carried by Canadian intermediaries and ISPs, and passed on to us as users. Building and maintaining both a complex and labour intensive process for addressing appeals from both rights holders and users, and technical blocking infrastructure itself, will require heavy ongoing investment by intermediaries in Canada. We already pay some of the highest Internet access rates in the world, and many in Canada struggle to pay for needed service; we can't afford to make that problem worse.

The proposals under consideration promise negligible benefits for people in Canada and considerable risks to our welfare and rights. Please drop this unneeded and dangerously broad proposal for revisions, and continue supporting Canada's effective existing copyright legislation.

Sincerely,
Evan Crothers