Have a look at this wonderful, interactive campaign comic - 51st State - which serves as an index to all the info about the issue of Canada’s new ‘Made-in-the-USA’ copyright bill, C-61. The text is entirely is composed of quotes which link to the sources on 193 websites, blogs, films, papers and articles.
The C-61 proposal has the most support from Hollywood and the record companies, and has seemingly earned overwhelming condemnation from Canadian lawyers, professors, musicians, filmmakers, and consumers.
Go to the download page!
While I brought the subject up to show off the brilliant comic, the issue may be of interest to people in the United States, the EU, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada and Mexico, as new, secret copyright laws are due to be adopted via the G8 as early as the summit in July 2008.
The proposed agreement - called ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) brings copyright law (which is normally a matter for parliamentary debate) under the umbrella of trade agreements. This means corporate lobbyists and governments can come up with laws that suit their interests in secret.
A leaked document suggests ACTA is considering its own world police force (seriously, just like Team America!) who would be able to stop random people at customs in any of the participating countries and go through their laptop or iPod looking for material which may infringe copyright. Travellers are presumed guilty until proven innocent, and could be fined and have their devices destroyed if they don’t have proof of purchase.
Another important provision would give your broadband supplier immunity from prosecution in exchange for spying on you and providing the information to the media corporations without an warrant, should they suspect you are infringing copyright. I assume this means everyone is spied on and whether there are charges or not - Hey! look at all the valuable marketing data we inadvertently have. Let’s sell it!
It seems to me these laws are not so much about stopping commercial piracy, as they are about extending an increasingly archaic business model which is at odds with digital technology - nobody really needs record companies any more. Citizens, and their rights to expression and privacy, are merely the unfortunate collateral damage of this process, as are our institutions and the rest of the economy. It’s the revenge of old media on new media.
I’ve been really impressed with Avaaz’s use of video in recent campaigns. Hopefully with this post I can give you a good sense of how they are using it, and also encourage you to add your voice to one urgent campaign. 
