Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to bring forward a petition signed by people from across Canada concerning the issue of technical protection measures, known as TPMs.
TPMs are implemented by some copyright holders because they can violate end users' privacy rights; prevent consumers from enjoying content on devices and software of their independent choice; circumvent or compromise the security of computers, including rendering them vulnerable to attack--and we remember the well publicized fiasco of the Sony BMG rootkit; that TPMs can be applied to both content and devices; that the copyright holder and the owner of the device have rights that must be respected; that copyright holder's own rights on the protected work and private citizens usually own the devices that access these works; that TPMs can be abused to harm the interests of the copyright holder and/or the device owner; that numerous Canadian organizations have opposed the legal protection of TPMs supplied to copyright holders or manufacturers of devices, including, but not limited to, the Canada's Privacy Community, the Digital Security Coalition, the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, Appropriation Art Coalition, Canadian Federation of Students, Canadian Library Association, Canadian Art Museum Directors' Organization and several thousands of Canadian citizens already signed these on such a position; that we are looking for Canadian legislation, such as the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act which prohibits the condition of the supply of a product or service on a person waiving their rights; and that the section 77 of the Competition Act regulates against the exclusive dealing in tied selling.
Therefore, the petitioners are calling upon Parliament to prohibit the application of a technical protection measure to a device without the informed consent of the owner of the device and to prohibit the conditioning of the supply of content to the purchase or use of a device, which has a technical measure applied to it. Further, they call upon Parliament to recognize the rights of citizens to personally control their own communication devices and choose the software based on their own personal criteria.