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Just a heads-up for Canadians, our courts have ruled in favour (search the page for "click wrap") of the enforceability of "click wrap" contracts, so doing this in Canada would in fact be a legitimate violation of the EULA.

That said, if I in fact paid good money for a legit copy of OS X, I find it unlikely Apple is going to hunt me down and fine me for it. At this point they have no way to correlate who buys a copy with their use (eg, it could be someone buying to upgrade a previous version or something).

...but there's nothing unlawful about telling an employee to train his replacement.

It is illegal to fire someone in a nasty or humiliating way and it was recently ruled that forcing the employees to train their (foreign outsourced) replacements counted as such.

And no, I don't have a citation handy. I learned this by talking to my cousin the labour lawyer. (What? Hearsay? On Slashdot? Never!)

The Canadian federal government has virtually no authority to regulate employment relationships outside a few industries

Ahem. Cough cough .

...but there's nothing unlawful about telling an employee to train his replacement.

It is illegal to fire someone in a nasty or humiliating way and it was recently ruled that forcing the employees to train their (foreign outsourced) replacements counted as such.

And no, I don't have a citation handy. I learned this by talking to my cousin the labour lawyer. (What? Hearsay? On Slashdot? Never!)

The Canadian federal government has virtually no authority to regulate employment relationships outside a few industries

Ahem. Cough cough .

We certainly dont have anything like the patriot act

Uh, yes we do.

Canadians only have those rights that Parliament chooses to allow Canadians to have. Those rights are in law, as opposed to the US where the constitution prohibits Congress from interfering with rights.

Canada has no constitutional prohibitions on Parliament modifying, abridging, or abolishing those rights at any time. Canadian courts have ruled that Parliament has the authority to pass unconstitutional laws.

Canada has warrantless searches and summary judgements.

Remember that the US Bill of Rights ends at the border. You do have rights in Canada, but they are different than the rights in the US. They are more explicitly spelled out and less strictly shielded than in the US.

True north strong and free

Last I checked, Canada has both.

Actually, they don't. Regardless of the ruling in Quebec, section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that Candadians have the right to "Freedom of Expression". However, according to section 1, all rights granted under this charter are subject to "reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". In America, the Bill of Rights comes with no qualifications. In the specific case of free speech, this means that extreme political viewpoints cannot be labeled as hate speech and banned. Not so, in Canada.

In Canada, as I understand it, unless there is a contract saying otherwise the copyright is in the hands of the entity who hired you to write it -- but you still have some very small rights as the author...

Sorry, but you've got things backwords in this case.

In Canada, intellectual property remains in the hands of the person who created it, unless a contract exists which specifically transfers it, or if the creator is an "employee" of the company.

So if I was contracted to develop a site for a client, and the IP issue was not discussed in the contact, then the copyright stays with me. This would restrict the business from changing or altering my code/design or giving it away to someone else.

One interesting copyright law which is in Canada (and most of the rest of the world) but not in the US is the idea of 'Moral Rights'. Unless waived, moral rights prevent a new copyright holder from altering the created work in a method which would distort, mutilate, or otherwise prejudice the honour or reputation of the author. It isn't in the US mainly because the entertainment industry wanted to use copyrighted ideas in hollywoodized movies ;-)

Links to back me up!

• Canada Copyright Act
• A lawyer discussing software ownership in Canada

-
Rod Apeldoorn

You should try reading the Canadian law regarding copyright. Just in case you don't feel like linking...

18. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the maker of a sound recording has a copyright in the sound recording, consisting of the sole right to do the following in relation to the sound recording or any substantial part thereof:

(a) to publish it for the first time,

(b) to reproduce it in any material form, and

(c) to rent it out,

and to authorize any such acts.

That percentage just got quite a bit smaller...

Canada is the most repressive developed nation in the world, from the perspective of free speech.

Does the DMCA mean anything to you? Guess what! We don't have an equivalent. (Yet...)

Their citizens haven't legal access to foreign media sources

I doubt you've ever been here. I get CNN, Al-Jazeera, Fox, PBS, and many more. In fact, most television stations here are not Canadian. I challenge you to find ANYTHING that would back up your statement.

...and they're subject to some of the most onerous speech restriction in the western world.

Actually, we do have more speech restrictions than Americans. I'd hardly call them onerous, though. At least, when it comes to hate speech. As I mentioned earlier, we don't have a DMCA to mess with other forms of speech. Here's the section of our Criminal Code that deals with the subject of hate speech.

Bill C-250, which some people on here have been wailing about, makes a single change to the Criminal Code: it adds "or sexual orientation." to subsection 4 of section 318.

Contrary to the beliefs of tinfoil hate (sic) people, this does not muzzle religion, because subsection 3 of section 319 states that "no person shall be convicted of an offence if, ... in good faith, he expressed or attempted to establish by argument an opinion on a religious subject." It also does not prevent public debate over gay rights, because "no person shall be convicted of an offence if ... the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true." The only stipulation in there that might prevent opposing arguments is that a person's statements must be true.

According to several US Supreme Court decisions (see U.S. v Guest, Shapiro v Thomson, et. al.), the right to travel freely is enjoyed by all citizens. As the primary purpose of driving is to travel from one point to another, it must therefore be a right. As far as I have been able to determine, there have been no USSC cases that, by abridging the right to drive, relegate it to "priviledge" status.

Does the fact that this took place in a Canadian province which may (haven't verfied this) treat driving as a privilege, do anything to frame this discussion properly?

I'm a resident of an adjacent province where driving is indeed privilege irrespective of any right to free passage. While this decision, which happened in a Quebec Provincial Court, will undoubtably affect rulings in Ontario, it's not going to automatically cascade into the U.S. Court systems.

Stand easy, good and faithful Defender of Freedom[TM]!

***

Good day Helene Scherrer,

A recent report has quoted you (Helene Scherrer) as saying that Canadian copyright law would be changed to make the download of copyrighted material illegal.

I strongly urge your ministry's to reconsider any proposed changes to Canadian copyright law.

As the law stands today it strikes a perfect balance between the protection of intellectual rights and the rights of individuals to access the intellectual property of others.

In the recent court decision by Justice Konrad von Finckenstein, he compared P2P (peer to peer) file sharing to a photocopier in a public library. I believe that his analogy is 100% correct. Technology itself does not encourage or imply the right to copy material that is protected. The Canadian supreme court has also ruled recently that simply providing the means to create an illegal copy is not an infringement. Please understand that the internet is simply a collection of technologies.

It is clear that the law must protect the rights of content producers, but not at the expense of depriving Canadians access to the knowledge and the whole body of intellectual work.

The concept of fair use is not new to Canadian copyright law. Part VIII paragraph/section 80 of the current Copyright act clearly outlines what constitutes copyright infringement and what does not (when dealing with music). To make a change to the act that is contrary to this section removes the protection of fair use. It is a slippery slope. Changes to the act, if not carefully worded, could result in a society where the intellectual property rights outweigh the rights of individuals to access information. This goes against the spirit of Copyright law. It is also goes against the spirit of shared knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge.

I believe it is the job of government to protect the common good; and to protect the rights of Canadians to pursue knowledge and to use that knowledge to become productive members of society. I also believe that the current Canadian Copyright Act does this while at the same time protects intellectual property rights.

It is not the job of government to protect corporate interests at the expense of individual Canadian's rights.

If you believe in a society that encourages the acquisition of knowledge you must think twice before before amending the copyright act.

One must ask - if something is not broken, then why fix it?

(sign your name)

***

A copy of this letter can also be found here.

sparky

80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of

(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,

(b) a performer's performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or

(c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer's performance of a musical work, is embodied

onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording.

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following in relation to any of the things referred to in paragraphs (1)(a) to (c):

(a) selling or renting out, or by way of trade exposing or offering for sale or rental;

(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade;

(c) communicating to the public by telecommunication; or

(d) performing, or causing to be performed, in public.

To address your concerns:

Okay... copyright means that the author has the absolutely exclusive _rights_ to copy the work and others can only obtain _permission_ to copy the work by authorization from the copyright holder. Fair use, btw, is granted permission by the copyright act and the copyright holder has no choice but to implicitly grant that permission.

Copyright means whatever the government with jurisdiction says it means. In this case, Canadian law specifically recognizes that individuals may make copies of copyrighted works for their personal use. It's explicitly recognized as what the U.S. system would refer to as 'fair use'.

So in what world is putting a file that you do _NOT_ own the copyright on, and have not actually obtained permission from the copyright holder to copy for purposes beyond fair use, in a publicly shared folder for others to obtain _not_ a violation of the copyright act?

It's a very interesting legal question, actually. If I borrow a CD from a friend and rip a copy for myself, I have not violated Canadian law. If he rips a copy and gives it to me, then a violation has occurred--my friend has run afoul of section 80(2)(b) by 'distributing' a copyrighted work. Note that we would still be in the clear if I had visited my friend and used his computer to make the copy for myself.

It gets complicated where P2P systems come into the question. Who performs the act of copying? Justice von Finckenstein's ruling held, in effect, that the person downloading the copyrighted work was the one performing the act of copying. Since it was for personal use, the copying was protected under the Copyright Act. The party supplying the song for download was only providing a list of the music in his collection, an act which does not contravene copyright law.

This ruling could (and very likely will) be challenged on the grounds that a) the person sharing files is an active participant in the copying, or b) a person who downloads and then shares music files has downloaded them with the intent to distribute, and is therefore not protected by the Act. Ultimately, it will be the Supreme Court of Canada that decides the merits of either or both of those arguments.

Downloading copyrighted materials may be per

80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of

(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,

(b) a performer's performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or

(c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer's performance of a musical work, is embodied

onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording.

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following in relation to any of the things referred to in paragraphs (1)(a) to (c):

(a) selling or renting out, or by way of trade exposing or offering for sale or rental;

(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade;

(c) communicating to the public by telecommunication; or

(d) performing, or causing to be performed, in public.

To address your concerns:

Okay... copyright means that the author has the absolutely exclusive _rights_ to copy the work and others can only obtain _permission_ to copy the work by authorization from the copyright holder. Fair use, btw, is granted permission by the copyright act and the copyright holder has no choice but to implicitly grant that permission.

Copyright means whatever the government with jurisdiction says it means. In this case, Canadian law specifically recognizes that individuals may make copies of copyrighted works for their personal use. It's explicitly recognized as what the U.S. system would refer to as 'fair use'.

So in what world is putting a file that you do _NOT_ own the copyright on, and have not actually obtained permission from the copyright holder to copy for purposes beyond fair use, in a publicly shared folder for others to obtain _not_ a violation of the copyright act?

It's a very interesting legal question, actually. If I borrow a CD from a friend and rip a copy for myself, I have not violated Canadian law. If he rips a copy and gives it to me, then a violation has occurred--my friend has run afoul of section 80(2)(b) by 'distributing' a copyrighted work. Note that we would still be in the clear if I had visited my friend and used his computer to make the copy for myself.

It gets complicated where P2P systems come into the question. Who performs the act of copying? Justice von Finckenstein's ruling held, in effect, that the person downloading the copyrighted work was the one performing the act of copying. Since it was for personal use, the copying was protected under the Copyright Act. The party supplying the song for download was only providing a list of the music in his collection, an act which does not contravene copyright law.

This ruling could (and very likely will) be challenged on the grounds that a) the person sharing files is an active participant in the copying, or b) a person who downloads and then shares music files has downloaded them with the intent to distribute, and is therefore not protected by the Act. Ultimately, it will be the Supreme Court of Canada that decides the merits of either or both of those arguments.

Downloading copyrighted materials may be per

Here's the rest of it, BTW. (Not that I can see where any of it makes a levy on CD-R's illegal, but that's probably just me :)

No!!

The personal copying rules which make this legal only apply to music. See Section 80 of the Copyright Act.

(1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of
(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,
(b) a performer's performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or
(c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer's performance of a musical work, is embodied
onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording.

Um, the Charter of Rights is Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982. It trumps any laws that have been passed since then. If they do undermine the Charter, they are, by definition, unconstitutional and hence void.

It may be that there are laws that do violate the Charter of Rights, but that only means their constitutionality hasn't been tested in court yet.

You're right, they're going after uploaders.

One bit about the game copying: game copying isn't protected. Not even audio recordings such as audio books. Only music copying is allowed.

Private copying info here Section 80 is the relevant part, and note how it only covers music.

The levy is paid by the manufacturer or importer.

So if the retailer imports the media, then the retailer gets to pay. Otherwise, the wholesale importer gets to do it.

Otherwise, the CD companies would have gotten wise to it, and embedded a 2 second audio clip on each CDR they sell, to get around the tax.

It's only on blank media, you can verify that by reading the law.

And manufacturers of music players have already caught on to this. I recently saw an MP3 player for sale which came with some pre-loaded music.

>I would like to see the section of the criminal code where PI's have additional rights over others. A handbook isn't a legal document.

No problem. I'll have to pull it off my shelves (where did I put it?). I'll quote out of it where I read it, however, it's been a while since reading it. I expect I've probably made a mistake (although I clearly remember the impersonation part). Most likely there's certain organizations you aren't allowed to impersonate and/or you have to make up the organization. It could also be that anyone is allowed to do this, but nobody but a PI cares.

I'm relatively sure it's the latter now, as these are the only two personation charges I could find nationally for Canada (don't blame me if you find more, IANAL):

Section 403, Criminal Code (Section 404 is pretty interesting too! :-)
Section 5, Security of Information Act (I'm pretty sure that only applies if you're investigating the government itself, but I could be wrong)

(I only read the book because it was a short read, cost $2 at the college bookstore [the course was cancelled, and the publisher didn't want the books back, and what can I say? I'm a sucker for a good deal], and was mildly interesting)

BTW: The handbook might not be a legal document, but they were serious enough to make 50% of the book a quotation of various legal Canadian documents that are of interest to private invetigators. Most discussions on what a PI could/couldn't do in Canada included legal cites (the relevant law being in the back of the book).

>I would like to see the section of the criminal code where PI's have additional rights over others. A handbook isn't a legal document.

No problem. I'll have to pull it off my shelves (where did I put it?). I'll quote out of it where I read it, however, it's been a while since reading it. I expect I've probably made a mistake (although I clearly remember the impersonation part). Most likely there's certain organizations you aren't allowed to impersonate and/or you have to make up the organization. It could also be that anyone is allowed to do this, but nobody but a PI cares.

I'm relatively sure it's the latter now, as these are the only two personation charges I could find nationally for Canada (don't blame me if you find more, IANAL):

Section 403, Criminal Code (Section 404 is pretty interesting too! :-)
Section 5, Security of Information Act (I'm pretty sure that only applies if you're investigating the government itself, but I could be wrong)

(I only read the book because it was a short read, cost $2 at the college bookstore [the course was cancelled, and the publisher didn't want the books back, and what can I say? I'm a sucker for a good deal], and was mildly interesting)

BTW: The handbook might not be a legal document, but they were serious enough to make 50% of the book a quotation of various legal Canadian documents that are of interest to private invetigators. Most discussions on what a PI could/couldn't do in Canada included legal cites (the relevant law being in the back of the book).

WRONG. Go read sections 79-82 of the Canada Copyright Act. It allows me to make a copy onto an "audio recording medium." "audio recording medium" is defined:

"audio recording medium" means a recording medium, regardless of its material form, onto which a sound recording may be reproduced and that is of a kind ordinarily used by individual consumers for that purpose, excluding any prescribed kind of recording medium;

So, if individual consumers ordinarily put mp3s on their hard drives, a hard drive becomes an "audio recording medium" under section 79.

Refer to: Copyright Act (Canada)

For example, it has been legal in Canada since 1998 to make a single copy of a recording for personal use

The article is misleading. It is legal to make all the copies you want for personal use. Your friends can copy your disks too; as long as you receive nothing in return (no trade, no dinner, no money).

The law does not say "only one copy".

So do you actually have some real complaints, or are they all made up?

"No, downloading is not legal in Canada"

However, "distribution" (whatever that may ultimately constitute - for instance is it distribution to have songs on your hard drive and not actively send them?) is an infringement under the Copyright Act. Distribution is far less clear.

In Canada, the airlines would be liable for damages from every customer for this (assuming there was no regulation requiring them to share the information).

IANAL

PIPEDA

In Canada, the airlines would be liable for damages from every customer for this (assuming there was no regulation requiring them to share the information).

IANAL

PIPEDA

27. (1) It is an infringement of copyright for any person to do, without the consent of the owner of the copyright, anything that by this Act only the owner of the copyright has the right to do.

(2) It is an infringement of copyright for any person to

(a) sell or rent out,

(b) distribute to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright,

(c) by way of trade distribute, expose or offer for sale or rental, or exhibit in public,

(d) possess for the purpose of doing anything referred to in paragraphs (a) to (c), or

(e) import into Canada for the purpose of doing anything referred to in paragraphs (a) to (c),

>If I say "all Jews are faggots", you can, legally, sue me for libel or slander.

I'll believe that when I see it. You can't sue for libel or slander unless you are *specifically* named. By specific, it needs to be more exact than a race. That's why Canada has a "hate crimes" law (not that I agree with it). The man wasn't charged with slander or libel or anything like that. He was charged under the Canadian Criminal Code for "Hate Propaganda" (yes, it's labelled that). If you'd like I'll show you the actual law. Awww hell, here it is.

If that were true, there'd be a lot more KKK going to jail than now. I am sure I can find you books even with this printed in them, and not just examples of examples of hate, but REAL HATE BOOKS. You know, like Mein Kampf, except with a living author. It isn't hard.

I'm suprised to see how many of the posters so far do not support this guy. I think his site is a parody, and I think it should be protected as such. Though he may have taken graphics or a stylesheet from the original site, those infringements are an essential component of the parody and I think he should be protected. Whether or not he *is* protected is another matter entirely. I've been reading the Copyright Act, and although I can find exceptions for news reporting and criticism (of the original work), I can't find one for parody. Nevertheless, I think it should be protected.

Section 3 of the Copyright act states that "copyright" means, in relation to that work, the sole right to produce, reproduce the work, to perform the work, to publish the work and to communicate the work. It also includes the sole right to authorise such acts. It's an infringement of coypright to do any of these things if you are not the copyright holder or if the copyright holder has not authorized you do to the act. A "work" includes a musical work. (i.e. a song)

The quirky thing about the Canadian Copyright Act however is that section 80 of the Copyright Act says that the act of reproducing a musical work onto an audio medium for private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of copyright in the musical work. This exception to liability is conditional upon the payment of remuneration on blank audio recording media, for which there is a tariff in Canada. However, the exception does not apply to "distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade" (which sounds allot like uploading) or "communicating to the public by telecommunication" (again, which sounds allot like uploading). There is case law out there that says that its the sender, and not the receiver of the communication, who communicates.

That's why allot of people say you can download, because what you are doing is reproducing a musical work onto an audio medium (eg: your hardrive or whatever) for private use. But that if you upload, you can't rely on the exception because you are either distributing or communicating without the copyright holder's consent.

So, if 2 parties - a borrower and a lender - have a piece of software on their respective computers which copies a CD over the internet, this action is perfectly legal. The lender is initiating the action. The lender paid the levy for the CD that is being burned. The borrower is not distributing or communicating to the public at large.

The lender might still beliable for copyright infringement. Remember, the "private copying" exception only applies to the act of reproduction. The lender might be either communicating a work to the public by telecommunication or distributing a musical work without the copyright holder's consent. However, if there are only two parties in your scenario, it would be very difficult to make a case that the "lender" here is communicating to the public by telecommunication because one person does not equal "public". You might still be distributing, but again, it may be tough to show that.

As always, RTFA, or here (from a previous Slashdot story), or Canadian Copyright Law.

Indeed, it appears to be legal to download copyrighted songs in Canada, even according to copyright experts and internet law experts. It hasn't been tested in court yet, but it seems prosecutors believe it is legal too so they won't prosecute.

But as the article states, uploading (broadcasting) is clearly illegal. So as long as we Canadians just leech, we're fine (legally speaking).

Section 80(1) of the Canadian Copyright Act allows copying. The catch is Section 80(2) which provides limitations, and the question arises whether the act of making the copy was done for "purposes" of distribution. The real question will be, what is distribution, and does leaving a copy on your hard drive constitute distribution? The MP3s in my shared folder are for me to listen to, and were not copied there for the purpose of "distribution". Allowing access to the internet does not strike me as "distribution" either, any more than leaving your door unlocked, thereby permitting a person to walk in and copy a CD would. "Distribution" is very unclear, and this could be a battle that CRIA loses.

They already don't have it both ways.

However, despite that, I am completely offended by the presumption-of-guilt that this levy relies on, especially given the amount of levied media I use for something other than music.

Since I learned about these levies and the linked-to section of the Copyright Act, I've been more than willing to copy anything, to make up for all the levies I've paid without doing unauthorized copying.

Noting that there is a difference between "unauthorized" and "illegal" copying....

Actually, until an exemption was made to the Canadian Copyright Act, for the most part, Canadians did not enjoy the right to copy music for personal use. The levy was first introduced at the same time as this exemption, in 1997.

The best part of this exemption is that Canadians are allowed to make a copy of someone else's music recordings. You don't have to own the original LP/tape/CD/whatever.

Yes, this means that Canadians are allowed to download music from P2P networks! Unfortunately, the Canadian Copyright Act specifically states that the exemption does not apply if you are "(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade; (c) communicating to the public by telecommunication".

It hasn't been tested in court, but it is commonly accepted that sharing music - i.e. allowing uploads - with P2P networks violates these clauses. So Canadians can download from P2P networks, but not upload.

So a (probably) completely legal alternative for Canadians is to rip mp3 streams from web radio. Sure beats the price-point of iTunes, and makes me feel a lot better about paying that levy on the hundreds of CDRs we go through in the course of software development.

No, but Michael Geist is, and he's also the Canadian research chair in Internet and e-commerce law, and he seems to think there is a good legal argument for saying it is legal.

But more to the point, the parent article here is not about the legality of downloading songs in Canada. It's about payment of royalties. In my own words, as I understand it, other broadcasters (radio, TV, etc.) have to play royalties to artists when they broadcast a copyrighted work. This case is trying to determine if ISPs, or anybody else, can be classified as "broadcasters" with respect to internet file trading for the purposes of collecting royalties.

In a sense, it's the other side of the coin from the downloading question. The Canadian Copyright Act appears to make downloading legal, but it seems quite clear that uploading (distributing) is not legal. While the levy on CD-R's legitimizes downloading in the Copyright Act, making ISPs (or somebody else) pay royalties for "broadcasting" may very well legitimize the distribution end of online sharing. After all, if you charge royalties to an ISP for songs that are distributed through it, you are creating a de facto license for the songs to be distributed through it. Might not be as clear cut as the CD-R levy, but I think it has legal merit.

I believe the problem goes both ways. If I were to move to the US (-20 December to February is getting tougher to take every year), I would probably not be allowed to pack my satellite receiver. This issue has as much to with licencing as it does . The US providers are not licenced to carry signals into Canada and Canadian carriers are not licenced to carry signals into the US.

The case that the parent refers to is Bell ExpressVu Limited Partnership v. Rex . At issue is s. 9(1)(c) of the Radiocommunication Act regarding who is allowed to decode signals. Iaccoubucci, J. cited a Federal Court decision regarding lawful right:

42 [...] Instead, it deliberately chose broader language. I therefore agree with the opinion of Letourneau J.A. in the Federal Court of Appeal decision in Norsat, supra, at para. 4, that

[t]he concept of "lawful right" refers to the person who possesses the regulatory rights through proper licensing under the Act, the authorization of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission as well as the contractual and copyrights necessarily pertaining to the content involved in the transmission of the encrypted subscription programming signal or encrypted network feed.

Obviously, the Court is protecting the big guys here and the federal government's interests. The federal government collects cash from licences and the satellite providers & networks [Bell owns CTV, Discovery Channel, TSN etc] maintain their oligopoly. Considering that most TV is crap and satellite TV is mostly reruns anyhow, and the fact the service costs a lot less in Canada than the US, I would not be surprised if Americans imported Canadian receivers. I would, however, be very surprised if US or state law and caselaw would permit that.

Read:

Canadian Copyright Act

In particular, sections 80 thru 82 make it clear that we are already paying for the right to make private copies.

That you can even consider this a good thing for one second is a clear example of why Europe and the Anglo nations (all of which, I believe, ban such retrials) will never get along.

As another post pointed out, Canada also has an appeal system (taken from this page:

In most civil and criminal cases, a decision made at one level of the court system can be appealed to a higher level. Where there is no right to appeal, permission or "leave" to appeal must be sought. The higher court may deny leave to appeal, or either affirm or reverse the original decision. In some cases, it will order a new trial. Both sides in a civil case may make such an appeal, and either the prosecution or the accused in a criminal case may appeal. Sometimes, it is only the amount of damages or the severity of the sentence that is appealed. For example, the accused may ask a higher court to reduce a sentence, or the prosecution may ask to have the sentence increased.

But I guess Canada is not very Anglo. At any rate, seperating UK from Europe and siding it with the US is mixing the real relationships between these continents with the relationship of Bush and his puddle Blair. Both of them will probably be out of office soon anyway.

it damned well does make it legal to copy CDs.

That's 100% correct.

The fact that the CD (or songs) was transmitted from one person to another via the internet has no effect on the enforcement of the law. We pay taxes on it, therefore it's legal.

That's 100% WRONG.

It matters. It matters very much. Read the law yourself. Specifically, see section 80.

As insightful as your post may seem, it's also wrong. The same law exists under the Canadian Bill of Rights.

In addition I've never seen those commercials but assuming they exist, the people who make anti-drunk driving ads are not the same who control the penal system.

Finally, you may boast of being more civilized but most Canadians don't. Most Canadians as I would guess most Americans don't walk around with a moral scorecard. We've got better things to do.

Actually, according the Part VIII of the Canadian Copyright Act it's entirely legal to download music from the internet. It states that it is legal due to the levys placed on recordable media, so it's unclear as to how this applies to copying to a hard drive (for which there is no levy), but it does state that copying music for personal use is legal. The down side is, there is a levy for hard drives and the recordable media in portable mp3 players in the works. I can't find the article at this time, but there are quotes floating around saying that once the levy is in place, the price of an iPod, for example, would be raised by $77 depending on the size of the hard drive inside.

IANAL, but it seems to me that the Canadian Copyright Act only states that is is okay to trade music as long as the levy is paid on blank media. If music is traded where the only physical storage media is a hard drive (There is no levy on hard drives), how does that make downloading , or trading music legal?

they are BROKEN products that violate my right to freely make copies for personal use.

You have no such right. The law permits you to make copies for personal use, but it doesn't give you the right.

Basically, if you can make copies for fair use, go for it. But the author/manufacturer is allowed to distribute the work in a manner that makes it hard or impossible to make copies, in that case if you can't make copies, tough luck.

It's all defined in the Copyright Act

Here's a better link to the private copying provision of the Canadian copyright law.

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter

Canadians have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Basically it's the US Constitution without the guns and DMCA.

We call it the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we try to avoid violating it semi-constantly...also note our near lack of human-rights violations.

Democracy is ruled by the majority - if you're in the minority (in this case people who understand or care about computers), you don't matter. If 51% of a the US (or substantially less, if there are at least 3 major candidates for political offices) wants to enslave the other 49%, they can.

This is logical if 51% of the people had exactly the same opinions and views, and the other 49% held opposing opinions. In reality, though, we're all a complex mesh of opinions and perspectives. Everyone is a minority in the minority of their opinions, and a majority in a few, and there are few overlaps*.

Secondly, most democracies have basic fundamental rights as a sacred realm that the tyranny of the majority can't impose themselves into (generally). Of course then you get people who just don't get the point, so sure of the righteousness of their own platform, so they try to supercede silly things like basic rights misunderstanding the whole premise (such as the separation of church and statement, which plays out in the US all of the time). This sort of thing is happening in Canada: Our Supreme Court has declared that based upon our basic rights dictated in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the government cannot dictate that marriage is a union of a man and a woman, and a marriage of man-man or woman-woman must be honoured in civic matters (which comes back to the whole church and state thing). How does the far right respond? By calling for the use of the Notwithstanding Clause, basically trumping basic rights and defeating the whole point.

"Copying in whole or in part without express permission is prohibited." Copyright law allows you to quote excerpts for review, research, or news reporting. At least Canadian law does.