Michael Geist to speak at McGill School of Computer Science, in Montreal

On November 14th, 2008, Michael Geist will give two talks in Montreal. One will be at the Computer Science colloquium at the Cchool of Computer Science of McGill Univeristy, and the abstract is below. The other talk will be at the Trudeau Foundation. The McGill talk is open to the public; I don't know much about the other talk.

Why Copyright? The Fight for Canada's Digital Future"

Abstract:

In June 2008, the Canadian government introduced Bill C-61, new
copyright legislation that closely followed the U.S. Digital
Millennium Copyright Act. The public response to the bill was both
immediate and angry - tens of thousands of Canadians wrote to the
Minister and their local Members of Parliament, leading to town hall
meetings, negative press coverage, and the growing realization that
copyright was fast becoming a mainstream political and policy issue.
The "Canadian copy-fight", which includes many new advocacy groups and
the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group that has over 90,000
members, has attracted considerable attention from the mainstream
media, with many wondering how copyright had emerged as a contentious
policy issue. This talk will assess both the legislative proposals and
the Canadian copyfight experience in an effort to answer the oft-asked
question – "why copyright?".