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==Open Source and Copyright Policy==
This talk was done by David Fewer. He is legal counsel for the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinicand the Canadian Software Innovation Alliance. He also conducts a technology law clinic at the University of Ottawa. He was speaking about how open source development is affected by copyright law, specifically, the Canadian Software Innovation Alliance. This is an organization that encourages government to continue to support the open software industry which has enabled Canadian developers to have a competitive advantage compared to developers of more restricted countries like the USA. A point that was stressed was that copyright law is about balancing the rights of consumers and the compensation of the author. Licensing and copyright laws need to have limits and exceptions to ensure that consumers are protected. Three essential exceptions and limits are the ability to enforce a license, ability reverse engineering and the ability to interoperate with other technologies.
These new anti-circumvention laws would severely hinder competition in the market place. Currently, Canada has a very hands-off attitude towards consumer protection where it is believed that if consumers feel that they are not being treated fairly they will not purchase the product and that the market will protect itself. This is a flawed ideal in the context of the proposed legal framework as the market will no longer be open to competitors and will stifle innovation at every point possible. It is suggested that Canada need to have a much stronger consumer protection voice in government. I believe that part of this problem is that for people to be able to make decisions as to which products to support, they must have an understanding of the product at a conceptual level. This is fairly easy with tangible goods like a car but very difficult with intangibles like software. This is especially true in an ecosystem where proprietary, closed solutions are considered to be not only the norm, but the ideal.
