Our firm Geophysical Service Incorporated creates seismic data which is our intellectual property.
In Alberta and Saskatchewan you pay for a permit, follow all the rules, and work with surface landowners for access and you can invest in data. These governments do not require you to give them a copy they can use for free. They understand this would be like telling Microsoft that because they do business in Canada they must allow the government free copies of all their software and that no license restrictions shall apply. It would obviously be ridiculous and overt nationalization to do this. If this thinking were applied fairly to all, no one would enter into this deal or be willing to invest and create under this condition.
Unfortunately we have state control minded bureaucrats in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Ottawa who think this is a good deal and a reasonable proposition. When seismic companies invest, risk, and apply hard work and effort to create valuable seismic data to promote Canada in the NWT and Arctic and Atlantic offshore areas, they demand a free copy with no license restrictions! Perversely and even worse, they feel entitled to be able to give it away to the very current and prospective customers that the seismic data owner lawfully licenses or seeks to license data to. This illogical and illegal activity is sold as the “greater good” and as a necessity to promote the offshore of Canada. They act as if the data is not available at all for license from the lawful owner.
I ask is it really for the “greater good” to take from small Canadian data owners and give millions of dollars of data to very wealthy mostly foreign oil companies? Is it really an incentive and necessary to do this when wells cost hundreds of millions of dollars to drill with a five percent chance of success, and the seismic is a few hundred thousand or a million for large amounts to license? Is it really worth destroying the incentive for seismic data investors to invest in data? Is it really worth destroying Canada’s reputation as a nation of laws, private property, fair people, fair and honest government? Is it worth trampling on Canadians rights, undermining all intellectual property and showing the world that Canada will attack companies and individuals that try to defend their rights?
My view is that being honest, not stealing, not coveting other people’s property, not using others property for one’s gain, not attacking the victim of crime is the true greater good!
I am from Alberta and proud of it. I will seek justice from those that have lost their way, and seek to take Canada in the wrong direction. I rely on good Canadians and pray for the Judges who hear my cases to be blessed with wisdom to see what is going on.
For GSI or any Canadian citizen who this could happen to, it really does have everything to do with the greater good, it’s just that our government has lost its way on how it justifies these actions.
I ask where has the “we stand on guard for thee” gone to in Canada?
