Jack Layton is the leader of the NDP, Canada's left-wing New Democratic Party, and is in the running for Prime Minister of Canada in the next election. On the heels of Canada's landmark court decision that essentially legalized file sharing, Layton has turned P2P into an election issue, endorsing file-sharing as a beneficial activity, a gutsy move, considering the Party's close ties with the arts (the NDP has traditionally endorsed strong arts-spending):
"I'm a holder of a copyright myself. But it's a book on homelessness and I don't mind if anyone wants to copy it," he says with a grin. "I'm still not so sure how (file sharing) impacts sales — some studies even say it enhances them. I don't think the dust has settled on this yet. When I was at university there was a great fear that photocopying was going to destroy the publishing industry and that hasn't happened. It's sometimes best to muddle along, take things one step at a time and see what happens. Society can have a way of sorting things out."
(Thanks, Simon!)
