Jailbreaking Canada with Cory Doctorow (2025-11-16)

Rina Chen’s living notebook on digital craft and design.

Jailbreaking Canada — Event Notes Summary

OCAD University
(Event: Jailbreaking Canada)

https://www.ocadu.ca/events-and-exhibitions/jailbreaking-canada

![[WhatsApp Image 2026-03-07 at 8.47.02 PM.jpeg]] (please remind me who made the drawing!)

1. Overview

What
A talk on enshitification, anti-circumvention (AC) laws, intellectual property regimes, and how Canadian policy choices have enabled corporate control over technology, repair, competition, and culture.

Focus

  • Why enshitification is a policy failure, not a market accident
  • How anti-circumvention laws criminalize repair, modification, and competition
  • Why “consumer choice” and “wallet voting” cannot fix the problem
  • What a “Jailbroken Canada” could look like politically, economically, and technologically

2. Key Concept: Enshitification

Enshitification = a structural outcome, not bad design

  • Platforms evolve through Phase 1 → Phase 4, where:
    1. They serve users
    2. Then businesses
    3. Then shareholders
    4. Finally extract rent from everyone

Why it persists

  • “Wallet voting” doesn’t work → the rich always win
  • Individual shopping choices cannot reverse structural lock-in
  • Companies didn’t accidentally enshitify — they chose to
  • Therefore: the job is the problem, not bad actors

3. Root Cause: Policy, Not Technology

Anti-Circumvention (AC) Laws

  • AC laws criminalize modifying, accessing, or repairing software-controlled devices
  • Based on DMCA Section 1201 (US), exported globally

Consequences

  • You may own the device physically, but not legally control it
  • Changing code = felony
  • Lawmaking is effectively outsourced to corporations

Example: HP Printers

  • You own the printer
  • Printer checks HP ink via embedded code
  • HP can update software → instantly create new criminal behavior
  • This is private, invisible law

DMCA = the enshitifier’s charter

4. Who Built the System

  • Bruce Lehman – architect of Clinton-era IP laws
  • WIPO (Geneva) – Internet treaties exporting AC laws globally
  • Canada
    • Rejected AC law three times
    • 2006 consultation:
      • 6,138 opposed
      • 53 supported
    • Still passed the Copyright Modernization Act

Key political figures

  • Stephen Harper administration
  • Tony Clement
  • James Moore

5. Repair, Interoperability, and Their Limits

“Right to Repair” Is Toothless Without AC Reform

  • Initialization routines locked behind corporate authorization
  • Fixing devices without approval = crime
  • Part pairing blocks third-party repair
  • Diagnostic tools = pure rent extraction

Bill C-294 / Interoperability (2024)

  • Reverse engineering allowed only if no access control exists
  • Access control = automatic disqualification
  • Therefore: competition is still illegal

6. Platform Rent Extraction

  • Apple App Store:
    • Flat 30% cut
    • Same payment process for every app
  • Etsy, others → revenue flows to Silicon Valley
  • Canada cannot seize tools of competition due to AC law

Example

  • Iceblock app removed from App Store
  • Labelled “radical extremist” content
  • Canada legally unable to intervene

7. Content Control & National Sovereignty

  • Netflix, Facebook:
    • AC laws prevent Canada from blocking unwanted content
  • Manufacturers can:
    • Immobilize devices
    • Kill apps globally
  • Huawei illustrates the danger of centralized manufacturer control

8. Trade, Tariffs, and Missed Opportunities

Why Canada adopted AC laws

  • US trade pressure
  • Threats of export tariffs (e.g. insulin)
  • Rogers earns far less than what flows to US platforms

Irony

  • Trump imposed tariffs anyway

Missed alternative

  • Canada could:
    • Legalize jailbreaking
    • Enable 90% cheaper app ecosystems
    • Still remain profitable
    • Undermine monopolies like John Deere, Tesla

Instead:

  • “Elbows up” = tariffs → higher prices for Canadians
  • US working people suffer too

9. Coalition Politics

The Winning Coalition

  • Billionaires
  • Racists
  • Corporate elites
  • “Getting things done” regardless of harm

The Missing Coalition

  • Repair advocates
  • Open-source communities
  • Privacy & security experts
  • Artists, educators, users

Third Coalition

  • National security sector
  • Trump as crisis → crises enable change
    • Ukraine war accelerated EU energy transition by 10 years

10. Vision: Jailbroken Canada

Not redistribution — liberation

  • Free redistribution via repair, modification, interoperability
  • FLOSS everywhere:
    • Ventilators
    • Cars
    • Infrastructure
  • Code that can be:
    • Seen
    • Tested
    • Changed

EuroStack

  • Alternative to US tech silos
  • Canada could leverage this model Universal Transparent, softeware, it is less technology, more like a science Have a new good Internet, with privacy safety and wallet safety Carney as empty vessel that people can project their hope on Permanent procurement Repairability

    Diagnostic tools is pure rent extraction.

11. Science vs Alchemy

Alchemy

  • Secrecy
  • Blind trust
  • Like drinking mercury because you can’t test it

Science

  • Transparency
  • Verifiability
  • Reproducibility

Software should behave like science.

12. Free Software & Its Meaning

  • Richard Stallman:
    • “Free as in speech, not beer”
  • Open Source ≠ Software Freedom
    • Open source can still enable control
  • SaaS breaks software freedom
  • Google:
    • Source visible
    • But freedom restricted to Google-designated clouds

Loss

  • Instrumental benefit (control, repair)
  • Ethical benefit (autonomy, commons)

Counterexample

  • Wikipedia:
    • Uncompromisingly free
    • Remains free

13. AI Discussion

  • AI treated as a plugin, not a god
  • AI sector not profitable
  • GPU data centers over-optimized
  • Diminishing returns
  • Investors misunderstand AI
  • Open-source AI highlights fragility of enclosure models

14. Why Enshitification Persisted

  • People didn’t care early enough
  • Platforms were genuinely good at first
    • Facebook, early years
  • Lock-in came later
  • AC law made exit illegal

15. Open Question (Unresolved)

Even if:

  • Canada legalizes jailbreaking
  • Leads globally in policy
  • Enables new apps
  • won’t those apps still be controlled by a few?

Also, the blame should be on everyone of us that enshitification is left unattended because people didn’t give a shit in the first place. Is policy making enough to change this culture? No. Policy making is only a starting line. What we need to think about is long-term learning and cultural forming opportunities.

The summary is generated by AI based on my notes.