Copyright

On Monday, June 20 Parliament introduced Bill C-60, "An Act to amend the Copyright Act", which proposes many radical changes to copyright law. This bill is intended to ratify two highly controvercial WIPO treaties from 1996, the same treaties which the USA claims are implimented by their Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Before the introduction of this bill, approximately 1800 Canadians had already signed the Petition for Users' Rights. This petition calls on Parliament to reject the majority of what was later included in Bill C-60.

Free Software

"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer." Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.

Location, date and time

Press conference

If you want to attend the press conference or communicate with one of our guests, please write to media@copyright2005.koumbit.org or ask for Robin Millette at 514-521-3942.

What does it cost ?

Entrance is free for all activities. However, we accept donations thru paypal, which takes credit cards, or in person on July 3rd 2005. FACIL, Koumbit and the LabCMO thank you in advance :)

Promotional material

Would you like to help us promote this event? To put a button (or banner) on your site, use the following XHTML code:

<a href='http://copyright2005.koumbit.org/index.en'><img border='0'
src='http://copyright2005.koumbit.org/copyright-2005.png'
alt="Copyright 2005, Copyright and you"
title="Copyright 2005, Copyright and you" /></a>

to obtain this result :

To display our poster in your neighborhood or at your job, print the Copyright 2005 poster in PDF format.

You can also print a copy of the Copyright 2005 program, also in PDF format.

Roles to fill

On the day, several coordinators will be needed to pull the event together. We have identifed the following key roles which will contribute to the success of the event.

• video/audio recording coordinator
• panel coordinator
• local group meeting coordinator
• GPG/PGP keysigning coordinator
• press conference coordinator

Write to org@copyright2005.koumbit.org to get involved.

Audio/video recording

Several people will document the event on video. We plan to distribute the recording(s) by p2p, probably with BitTorrent.

Schedule

Time	Activity
13h	Kiosks open
16h30	Dinner break
18h	Press conference SQIL / FACIL / ...
18h30	Richard Stallman's speech
20h	Question / answer panel

Kiosks

Here's the list of groups, projects, companies and consultants hosting a kiosk. To learn everything about their achievements, project, goals and members, or to become a member yourself, come meet them from 13h until 16h30.

If you're hosting a kiosk and your plans change, please contact us right away so we may assign your place to another group. Write to kiosque@copyright2005.koumbit.org for more information.

• Cogitateurs-Agitateurs http://cogitateurs-agitateurs.org/
• Communautique http://communautique.qc.ca/
• FACIL http://facil.qc.ca/
• FreeCulture.org http://freeculture.org/
• GULSE http://gulse.org/
• GULUQAM http://gul.uqam.ca/
• Gulus http://www.gulus.org/
• île sans fil http://ilesansfil.org/
• KDE http://kde.org/
• Koumbit http://koumbit.org/
• LabCMO http://cmo.uqam.ca/
• Linux-Suroît http://www.linux-suroit.org/
• MLUG http://mlug.ca/
• OCLUG http://oclug.on.ca/
• PHP Québec http://phpquebec.org/
• Savoir-faire Linux http://savoirfairelinux.com/
• W3Qc http://w3qc.org/

Press conference

The media is invited to a press conference presented by the organizing committee of the Semaine quebecoise de l'informatique libre (SQIL), a Free Software Week in Quebec, FACIL, Koumbit, and the LabCMO. The July 3 event will introduce attendees and the press to the week-long Free Software Week event which will be held in November 2005.

The press conference will describe the events of the day and present the panel members.

Richard Stallman's speech

Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it.

The global corporations that profit from copyright are lobbying for draconian punishments, and to increase their copyright powers, while suppressing public access to technology. But if we seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright--to promote progress, for the benefit of the public--then we must make changes in the other direction.

This presentation will be in french.

Question / answer panel

Richard Stallman's presentation will be followed by a question/answer session in English and French. Several interpreters will translate when necessary in order to make the event accessible to all.

• Richard Stallman
• Russell McOrmond
• Marcus Bornfreund
• Daniel Pascot
• Cyrille Béraud
• Robin Millette

OpenPGP key signing

An exchange of OpenPGP keys signatures is a chance for users of OpenPGP encryption tools to "certify" the level of trust of their keys and validaite their identity. Such certification is mostly voluntary and doesn't hold any legal value but it establishes and furthers the "Web of Trust". To find out more about encryption, OpenPGP and the Web of Trust and digital signatures, you can visit the encryption page by Fabian Rodriguez.

The OpenPGP key signing exchange will be held at 4:30PM at the beginngin of the meal period and should take about 15 minutes. Please make sure you have followed these steps in order to participate:

• Visit the event's entry on biglumber.com.
• Click on the link at "This event has a keyring"
• If you are already registered at biglumber.com (fast and free), you can confirm your participation by clicking on "Add your key to this keyring". Otherwise, you can do it by using cut & paste to put your public key in the form.
• Do not forget to bring at least two valid IDs at the event as well ONE copy of your (printed) OpenPGP key fingerprint, even though we'll provide an official printed listing. The keysigning policy of each participant may vary and we'll invite you to explain yours briefly before proceeding, so come prepared. You can also check if each participant has registered individually for the event's entry on biglumber.com, listing their keysigning policies.

During the keysigning event, this is what will happen:

• Key identification: In the order on the printed listing each of the participants will stand and read their own fingerprint from the copy they brought. Reading the fingerprint consists of reading your key size, type, ID and fingerprint. There will be checkboxes down the side of the sheet, two next to each fingerprint. The first box is checked off as each person reads their key.
• Key certification: we will form a big conga line. The first person will turn around and walk down the line examining identification and checking the "Owner ID matches ?" on the paper if it matches to their satisfaction. The amount of evidience required to "Positively ID" an individual is a personal choice. Remember that when you sign a key, you are telling the world that you believe and trust that the key belongs to that person.

If you can not participate at the scheduled keysigning event, we encourage informal keysigning exchange during the event.

The panel

The panel will be comprised of experts on copyright, Free Software, the Canadian legislation and the local communities.

Richard Stallman

http://stallman.org/

Richard Stallman launched the development of the GNU operating system ( see http://www.gnu.org/ ) in 1984. GNU is free software: everyone has the freedom to copy it and redistribute it, as well as to make changes either large or small. The GNU/Linux system, basically the GNU operating system with Linux added, is used on tens of millions of computers today. Stallman has received the ACM Grace Hopper Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer award, and the the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Betterment, as well as several honorary doctorates.

Russell McOrmond

http://www.flora.ca/russell/

Russell McOrmond is an Ottawa-based software developer. He feels that the rights and responsibilities offered by Free Software should be thought of as being much more critical for any implementation of a modern free society than has been understood in the past.

Daniel Pascot

http://www.fsa.ulaval.ca/html/danielpascot.html

Département des Systèmes d'Information Organisationnels et responsable d'un projet de recherche sur les logiciels libres pour le Conseil du Trésor de Québec et d'un projet de recherche et d'intervention pour une architecture de l'information au Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux du Québec.

Marcus Bornfreund

http://www.commonlaw.uottawa.ca/faculty/prof/mbornfreund/desce.htm

Currently acting as both the Manager of the Law & Technology Program, as well as teaching the Electronic Commerce Law Workshop at the University of Ottawa. He is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, Electronic Frontier Canada, and the Free/Open Source Research Community at MIT. Marcus' recent research has focused on Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) and open-source generally, file-sharing, digital rights and information-based asset management, intelligent agents, e-commerce, and the delivery of online legal services. He is also responsible for CIPPIC's Canadian translation of the popular Creative Commons licence.

Cyrille Béraud

http://savoirfairelinux.com/

Expert in Unix systems for more than 20 years, Cyrille Béraud founded Savoir-faire Linux in 1999. In 6 years, and all over Canada, Savoir-faire Linux is the leading company that enables the use of Open Source softwares in the industry. Since its creation, there is a core project at Savoir-faire Linux: experience Richard Stallman's proposal - The GNU GPL and his flavours - in the daily reality and demonstrate that this proposal is not only economically viable, but also a necessity for modern information technologies economies.

Robin Millette

http://facil.qc.ca/RobinMillette

Programmeur depuis une quinzaine d'années, Robin Millette a découvert l'informatique libre un peu avant 1990. Membre actif de la communauté du libre au Québec et plus particulièrement à Montréal depuis trois ans, il a fait partie d'Île sans fil à ses débuts et a veillé à la naissance de FACIL, dont il est président depuis avril 2005. Il a contribué en 2004 à la fondation du Salon du livre libre et de la Semaine québécoise de l'informatique libre et reprend son rôle pour cette année. Pour lui, l'informatique libre est avant tout une question de communauté de gens qui collaborent.

Organization

This event is the product of a collaboration between a non-profit association, a social works group and a communications lab.

FACIL, pour l'appropriation collective de l'informatique libre

http://facil.qc.ca/

Non-profit association that promotes Free Software use among the people of Quebec and by public institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private business.

Koumbit

http://koumbit.org/

Koumbit is a non-profit organization whose mission is to facilitate the use of Free Software within Quebec social groups by developing a common computing platform and assuring availability of customer support for Free Software.

LabCMO

http://cmo.uqam.ca/

The Computer Mediated Communication Laboratory (Laboratoire de communications médiatisées par ordinateur) is a research lab for multidisciplinary studies in Computer-Mediated Communications (CMC). The Lab is available to graduate students, researchers and community partners for work related to its mission of Free Software dissemination to other research groups and community partners.

The volunteers

Several volunteers have stepped forward to be part of the success of this event:

Lead coordinator

Robin Millette

Translations

Anne-Marie (coordinator), Sébastien Carrillo, Brenda J Butler, Oana, ...

Kiosks

Marc Tardif (coordinator), ...

Medias

Valérie Dagrain (coordinator), Stéphane Couture (press release), ...

Panel

(your name could be here !)

Video

CMAQ volunteers will be on hand to document the proceedings. Special thanks to simms :)

Keysigning

Fabian Rodriguez

Mailing lists, discussion and annoucements

To receive news on Copyright 2005 : http://copyright2005.koumbit.org/listes/news

To contribute to Copyright 2005 : http://copyright2005.koumbit.org/listes/org

General discussions, FACIL forum (mostly in french) : http://copyright2005.koumbit.org/listes/facil

Controverses du libre (Free Software controversies, mostly in french) : http://copyright2005.koumbit.org/listes/controverses