Why the Canadian DMCA doesn't matter

I'm sure anyone who knows me at all must have nearly fallen off their chair reading the title of this post, as I have been nothing if not the single most vocal critic in Canada of the new DMCA-like bill expected to be tabled tomorrow by Minister Jim Prentice. Why on earth would I suggest that this bill doesn't matter?

Well, fear not my friends. I have not changed my position on the matter of how so-called "intellectual property"has been poorly positioned in our society and how the current attempts of large media corporations and lobby groups to protect their outdated business models are threatening the very innovations that hold the path to survival, if not flourishment, in the digital age. The Canadian DMCA has been drafted at the beck and bidding of foreign corporate and political interests drastically at odds with the actual well-being of regular Canadians or indeed most anyone, and the restrictions it threatens to impose could hold real danger for many important uses of information, be it in schools and universities, cutting-edge software and business, or even for the use of music by music fans and thus the lifeblood of the Canadian artists they support. This law is bad. Period.

There is, however, a greater reality to be taken in here. From time to time recently, events have presented themselves which clarified and organised the nascent digital revolution that is forming on the web. One such event was the raid in Sweden on the Pirate Bay. Another was the battle on Digg over the attempted censoring of the "09 f9 11..." decryption code for hd-dvd's. In both and other cases, the mass response to circumstances made headlines, yes, but more than that they made budding intellectual property reformists aware of their power. In the case of the "09 f9 11" incident, for example, the code proved unstoppable despite DMCA takedown notices and what most consider to be its illegal status under U.S. law. The raw futility of trying to enforce the legislation against such things was an implicit victory for digital activists. It emboldened and empowered them rather than thwarting them the way it was intended to.

The Canadian DMCA is playing precisely the same role in Canada today. The reaction to the bill has become even more important than the bill itself. Opinions which lay scattered across the country, unspoken and isolated, are being coalesced into a greater and more powerful whole. What will happen to that growing whole if the Canadian DMCA is passed? If anything it will grow larger and bolder and even more active. The Canadian digerati have become aware of how large and powerful they are. Mere legislation cannot stop the tide that is forming, because that tide is backed by the unstoppable ocean of information itself, yearning to be free.

The Canadian DMCA is a dangerous and counterproductive piece of legislation, and we should do everything we can to stop it. But even if we cannot, it doesn't matter. In the true spirit of what we are fighting for, the information itself about who we are and what we can do has intrinsically freed us already.