Bill Before Parliament Supports The Right To Repair

Many of the devices we use in the 21st Century are controlled or regulated by software. The agriculture industry has become increasingly reliant on software to maintain high performance and safety standards for farming equipment — but repairing high tech equipment or farm equipment software isn't always a straightforward task.

That's in part because Canadian copyright law currently contains provisions that prohibit the circumvention of "technological protection measures" ("TPM"). TPMs are a form of "digital lock" used in a variety of sectors to control access to digital content and prevent unauthorized access, reproduction or distribution of digital products such as music, film and software. Since coming into force in 2012, section 41 of the Copyright Act has guarded against the unauthorized modification of TPM-protected software on software-enabled devices.