I was glad to learn recently that Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa whom I had the pleasure of meeting during my stay there, will be releasing a book next month. He mentioned it when I met him, and it sounds as interesting now as it did then. The book, In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law, will be published by Irwin Law — under a Creative Commons license. Geist edited the book and wrote a chapter — the rest are by other top Canadian professors.

We usually don’t mention book releases on this blog — we don’t have anything against J.D. Lasica’s Darknet, for instance, we just weren’t sure about using our blog to plug it — whereas this is a direct follow-up to a conversation I had (and, therefore, to a previous post). The fact that it’ll be free under a CC license is a factor, too.

But Geist’s book is not just interesting reading: it’s a tactical dart in a political fight. Right now, Canadians are fighting Bill C-60, a proposed new copyright law that’s pretty nasty for consumers. In the Public Interest is aimed squarely at C-60, with detailed analysis of the bill (damning, I’m sure) — timed to coincide with the Parliament’s return to session.

MPs will have no excuse to accept unquestioningly the CRIA party line: In the Public Interest, on the contrary, should raise plenty of questions about C-60. Its supporters, in fact, may need to prepare to question everything. (CRIA, by the way, is the Canadian RIAA — even though many of the member companies are American- or European-owned.)

Bravo, Michael. Canadians, add this to your “recommended reading” lists.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 7th, 2005 at 2:36 am and is filed under Canada, Commentary, Copyright. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.