Today the Conservatives will introduce a copyright bill that is expected to include new provisions for digital locks that will limit consumer rights. But what was the driving force behind this legislation and what about the two Ministers introducing it?

A paper that will be presented today at the Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association says that the line from the PMO on writing this bill was “We don’t care what you do, as long as the U.S. is satisfied.” [5]

And the Ministers behind this bill?

Last year James Moore admitted he watched “more television on my iPod than I do on an actual conventional television set or through my personal video recorder.” (Canwest News, May 10, 2009) Under his own government’s previous copyright legislation, Bill C-61, this would have been illegal, making Minister Moore liable to punitive fines and jail time. Why is Mr. Moore today proposing legislation that might limit his own use of digital material?

Industry Minister Tony Clement amassed a whopping 10,452 song collection on his iPod by breaking Canada’s existing copyright laws (Canwest May 27, 2010). Today in the Globe and Mail, digital rights expert Michael Geist said he’s “expecting the legislation will lack a flexible ‘fair dealing’ provision that gives users broader leeway to use copyrighted works without permission for legal purposes such as research, reporting, or private study.” (Globe and Mail, June 1 2010)

There you have it: a bill written to satisfy US demands, introduced by two Ministers whose own use of content demonstrates the failure of the bill.