I'll take the opportunity to respond to Mr. Sookman's earlier comments in which he suggested I'm advocating all sorts of free copying. I hope you'll agree that over the last couple of hours that's not what you've heard. I'm calling for a balanced approach to copyright, not one in which wild, uncompensated copying is taking place.
It's also important to talk to the specific business issue Mr. Sookman raised. He's talked about the reliance that some businesses have on things like digital locks. Let's also recognize that a large number of businesses are reliant on the absence of digital locks, or at least rely on balance within those digital lock rules. That's why you have various groups--the CADA and the BCBC, and other groups that may ask to appear before you--that have expressed concern about the way the digital lock rules themselves are framed within the bill, because they believe it puts them at a competitive disadvantage.
Consider just one example. I was talking earlier with Mr. Rodriguez about my iPad, which I mentioned my kids love, and so far I am a satisfied customer. We all know competing devices are going to come onto the market, including one from one of Canada's most important technology companies, Research In Motion. If I'm going to switch off the iPad and go to the PlayBook, consider what happens if the format shifting provision that exists right now continues to have that digital lock provision in there. All the investments I've made in electronic books and movies are confined to a specific format on the iPad. Unless I pick that digital lock, which I'm not now entitled to do, I can't switch it over to the PlayBook. In fact, what happens is that the cost to consumers in switching isn't limited to the device; it's now the hundreds or potentially thousands of dollars that they've invested in content. That hurts not just the consumers; it also hurts some of our best and biggest companies in terms of their ability to compete in the marketplace.