Copyright Bill on Notice Paper as Ministers Emphasize Balance, Modernization

The government has placed the forthcoming copyright bill on the Notice Paper, which means that the bill could be introduced as soon as tomorrow.  The campaign to support the bill has also begun, with an op-ed in today's National Post jointly authored by Industry Minister Tony Clement and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore.  The op-ed throws out lots of statistics about the digital and cultural economies and tries to make the case that it has been years since the last update (it references how the current bill is more than 80 years old, but then states that at the last update Canadians used CD players, pagers, and Sega Genesis - not exactly an eternity given that many still use CD players and pagers).

A word cloud of the op-ed would focus primarily on two words - balance and modernization.  Both words appear repeatedly in the piece, with the Ministers emphasizing that the bill will be balanced and that modernizing the law is long overdue.  This suggests that the C-61 communication line of a "made in Canada" has been dropped, which makes sense given the digital lock provisions will reflect a made-in-the-USA approach.