Intervention in opposition of the Bell Coalition's "Fairplay" site blocking proposal.

I have made an intervention to the CRTC in opposition to FairPlay Canada's so-called "application to disable on-line access to piracy sites".

Summary

While is is appropriate for the courts to be able to require Internet Service Providers to block access to specific “sites”, it is inappropriate for vertically integrated media distributors to be allowed to do this without a court order. These media distributors are in a conflict of interest when it comes to providing lawful online distribution of media, and their business models are known to induce copyright infringement.

Given this conflict we should not only be demanding that court oversight exist prior to blocking, and not as an expensive appeal process, but that government and regulators need to reduce rather than increase the influence of broadcasters and BDUs over Canada’s digital communications networks.

Read more:

• Tweet informing Fairplay of my intervention, as requested by the CRTC. Re-tweet if you agree with my submission.
• Google Doc (which allows users to download alternate formats, including PDF)
• CRTC website (which includes the PDF)