Please forward as you feel appropriate. Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 01:03:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Akrigg <contact.gutenberg@yahoo.ca> To: Michael Hart <hart@pobox.com> Cc: hart@pglaf.org Subject: An urgent appeal to all Canadian supporters of Project Gutenberg Dear friends: I am the founder of Project Gutenberg Canada, and would like to make a special appeal to Canadian supporters of Project Gutenberg. Our government is sponsoring a Copyright Consultation on future changes to the Copyright Act. This is an unprecedented request from the government for the people of Canada to express their views on copyright law. Please consider making your personal submission. In the submission which I made on behalf of Project Gutenberg Canada, I made the following five recommendations: 1. A "Safe Harbour" provision for works more than 75 years old where the life dates of the authors are not known 2. No extensions of copyright durations 3. Explicit assignment to the Public Domain of those photographs that were in the Public Domain in 1997 4. 75 year copyright for works with more than 15 authors 5. Enhanced protection of the Public Domain You can read the full PG Canada submission at http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/008.nsf/eng/01390.html Your own submission should be in your own words, and can be quite short. We don't want to bury the government in spam, and truly individual submissions will have the greatest effect. There is no need to precisely mirror the recommendations I made. You will find the main Copyright Consultations page here: http://copyright.econsultation.ca/ You will find information on how to email your submission here: http://copyright.econsultation.ca/topics-sujets/show-montrer/18 You might also wish to send a copy of your submission to your Member of Parliament: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCo... The main Copyright Consultation page has information on how you can participate in the forums being conducted by the government on copyright issues, which naturally cover many issues which do not affect PG Canada, but do affect your life in other respects. The main thing is to make your submission sooner rather than later: the Copyright Consultation ends on September 13th. It appears possible that there will be a federal election in Canada this fall. Don't forget to tell your candidates that they are answerable to you when it comes to copyright law, and that you expect any future government to protect and promote the Public Domain. Thank you in advance for your help. And don't forget to make your submission! Dr. Mark Akrigg Founder, Project Gutenberg Canada