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Geist has a page dedicated to "The Canadian DMCA: What You Can Do"

here it is:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2431/125/

Enjoy!

Please actually read the article that is linked. The French are reporting that apparently the Canadians are considering implementing this policy. That's second hand hearsay at best. And the quote included in the Slashdot article is from whomever made the original post on Techdirt.

And in any case, the system is far from being implemented in France, given the legalistic headaches involved. And, to further drive a nail into that proposal's coffin, the European Commission issued a directive specifically against such a "three strikes and you're out" policy.

WEe're currently experiencing the same issues up here in Canada. You guys have Comcast, we have Rogers and Bell. Also, I have to argue that Net Neutrality would hamper ISPs....if anything, it would promote MORE freedom do to whatever it is you do on the Net without having to worry about how much money is needed to guarantee that people can actually reliably access your website. In the US, the Gov't is by the people, for the people and of the people....who the hell in the US from the people want to give Telecorps more power? We, in Canada, are dealing with the same shite... http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2463/125/

Yes, Knopf likes classical music and doesn't like pop, but that's a side issue. He mentions it on his blog, but it has nothing to do with the main issues he discusses concerning copyright. As far as copyright goes, he isn't extreme at all. He doesn't propose abolition of copyright or anything really radical. Much of what he does is just point out the facts. The talk that he was going to give is on the same topic as a recent post in which he pointed out various ways in which Canadian copyright law is actually stronger than US copyright law, contrary to the US propaganda. I've seen no substantive response to his points. Indeed, the highly respected Michael Geist recently pointed out that according to the far from radical World Economic Forum, Canada ranks well above the US in its adherence to and enforcement of copyright norms.

Michael Geist seems like the logical person to play Bob Loblaw. He even has his own law blog.

You've completely misread this issue - they're throttling RESELLER lines now. You know, the only 'competing' ISPs who need to buy directly from Bell, who were previously not throttling anything and loudly advertising this fact to compete Bell who was already throttling torrents. And thus Bell is now throttling end-users with whom they have no contract, directly interfering with their competitors' business.

More info on this in Geist's latest post, covering the Canadian ISP Association's filing to the regulatory body.

Not only that, but they're throttling ALL encrypted traffic, albeit apparently only outside business hours, with a very small whitelist with few entries (mainly VoIP.) So VPN, SSH, SFTP are all now throttled as well. So your connections are suffering exactly as much as the next guy's hentai downloads.

Dr. Geist you say? Right here.

This is especially ironic since many of the Olympic Committees sue anyone using the word 'Olympic' or press governments for legislation protecting their precious name. For instance a few link samples:
US: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=15360
CA: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1777/125/
UK: http://blogs.reuters.com/uknews/2008/02/06/olympic-tussle-over-a-name/
Given the IOC and each local Olympic committee's approach trademark ownership, they should have no problem removing the game.
This is unlikely because, they will not treat other's work the same as they want theirs enforces. Hypocrisy at its finest.

Proper formating:

1. Nobody is 'taking' anyone's income.

2. Clearly amoral? I'd like to see you argue for that.

3. No, the enemy is copyright law that is completely fucked up, and corporations that have no clue about what their clients want, instead trying to sue them into buying their product.

4. Corporations are already moving away from DRM, and they are futile and useless anyway since hackers can bypass them at will and normal users are encumbered. DRM decreases the perceived value of a product, and increases the perceived value of the pirated copy, the demand curves are shifted accordingly. It makes you wonder if anyone at the big recording companies has actually studied economics.

5. The pirate bay is not one of the bad guys either. They simply point you to material (in your analogy, it's the torrent client that gives the keys, but it doesn't work anyway, because the bank loses money, while the holder of pirated material doesn't.)

PS: You think people who download never have and never will pay artists for their work? http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2347/125/ A government commissioned study finds that people who download music are more likely to buy it.

PS2: hand in your geek license (or punch your astroturf license) on your way out.

1. Nobody is 'taking' anyone's income. 2. Clearly amoral? I'd like to see you argue for that. 3. No, the enemy is copyright law that is completely fucked up, and corporations that have no clue about what their clients want, instead trying to sue them into buying their product. 4. Corporations are already moving away from DRM, and they are futile and useless anyway since hackers can bypass them at will and normal users are encumbered. DRM decreases the perceived value of a product, and increases the perceived value of the pirated copy, the demand curves are shifted accordingly. It makes you wonder if anyone at the big recording companies has actually studied economics. 5. The pirate bay is not one of the bad guys either. They simply point you to material (in your analogy, it's the torrent client that gives the keys, but it doesn't work anyway, because the bank loses money, while the holder of pirated material doesn't.) PS: You think people who download never have and never will pay artists for their work? http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2347/125/ A government commissioned study finds that people who download music are more likely to buy it. PS2: hand in your geek license (or punch your astroturf license) on your way out.

Some already do

Writing to people with counter-points whose minds are already made up seems rather futile no matter how many people tell them they're wrong.

Here in Canada, we blocked the "DMCA" thanks in large part to Michael Geist, but it was the 30k+ people who signed up as facebook-friends, and the untold number of people who sent e-mail and snail-mail to Jim Prentice and others that I think really made the final difference.

Unless you Brits are corrupt like the US*, your politicians will change their mind if enough people make their voice heard.

I'm sorry if I offend my friends to the south, but the proper word for "campaign contribution" is bribery and used to be an offence. As long as companies can buy legislation, your votes are worthless.

For example, my local cable ISP has marked ALL encrypted traffic as having a lower priority over non-encrypted content in their "war on P2P filesharing" (this means, amongst other obvious drawbacks, downgraded performance using ssh and sftp) reference. I am not sure on the specifics or legality of this kind of "filtering" but it would seem that nobody has made such a big fuss yet up here. Their practice is grey-zone at best I would think and it will be interesting to see what happens with the issue.

We are facing the same problem.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2601/125/

I've often wondered about that. A lot of people will argue that "conspiracy to commit" == "thoughtcrime", but the fact is you can think about it all you want, it's when you start planning to bomb a building, abduct a politician, kill your boss or whatever that it becomes conspiracy.

In many cases I believe the consequences of "conspiracy" are much the same as committing the actual act. It's not just for nailing those that are plotting act X ahead of time, but for those that were involved with the plot after-the-fact. Can somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that conspiracy is in fact a crime as well, it's just that "conspiracy" is a different form of the crime.

However, it's still a moot point. To my knowledge it's still not (yet) an actual violation of the criminal code to copy music. The only thing that I know of that's a crime at the moment are things like camcording in a theater in Canada (thanks to US lobbiests literally sleeping with Canadian politicians). I wonder if a bunch of kids planning a way to record a movie from a theater would thus guilty of conspiracy. Notwithstanding that camcording a movie is a dumb thing to do anyways, it's kinda sad to see that such a thing can now hold a jail term, and I can guarantee you that the theaters and movie companies are very happy to advertise things like "You won't be able to record a movie when you're in jail" up here in Canada.

I can't say with certainty why the bill has been delayed, nor whether it will be for a day or two, or for longer. I think that this presents an excellent opportunity for Prentice to engage in broader consultation and hold off introducing the bill until 2008.

Yeah, well, apparently, Dr. Geist looked carefully at what the Minister said. He also noticed what was in the throne speech. If you read this entry of his http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2295/125/ you'll see where he noticed what was mentioned and what *wasn't* mentioned. Therefore inferring what it contained. Also, in this post of Dr. Geist's from a House of Commons debate http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2321/125/ Again, what was spoken of, and what *wasn't* mentioned. Therefore inferring it. So, as to whether or not he's being fed info from the Minister's office directly? I'd not know that. But we can always hazard a guess. :) I'd say "yeah, likely".

Yeah, well, apparently, Dr. Geist looked carefully at what the Minister said. He also noticed what was in the throne speech. If you read this entry of his http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2295/125/ you'll see where he noticed what was mentioned and what *wasn't* mentioned. Therefore inferring what it contained. Also, in this post of Dr. Geist's from a House of Commons debate http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2321/125/ Again, what was spoken of, and what *wasn't* mentioned. Therefore inferring it. So, as to whether or not he's being fed info from the Minister's office directly? I'd not know that. But we can always hazard a guess. :) I'd say "yeah, likely".

Yeah, some citizens tried to ask the Minister some pointed questions today at an Open House at his Calgary office today. Here's the link http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/blogsection/0/125// to Michael Geists blog, the great Canadian who's a Law professor at Uni. of Ottawa, and a champion of "Fair" Copyright for Canada. There are pictures up on the Facebook group as well. But sounds like the Minister was very stand-offish and dismissive of this group. "C'est la vie" or in other words "piss off you stupid idiots who voted for me. Hahaha, we've got the power now, we're not going to listen to you! :P (sorry that's my stupid childish streak emerging) :)

I think the US imperialistic tendencies are seeping out.
Like Britain(India, Ireland), they are convinced that they know better then the rest of the world.
The US is happy legislating its morality. As long as you have the US as the only super power, it truly is the west against everyone else. In the US they arrested and jailed the owners of a 3 day old online-poker law.
The US decided that even Credit Card companies that are making payments to these 'scum of the earth' would be held liable. Even after the WTO slapped them for it. They even tarried the crap out of our softwood lumber, aing that it was somehow federally subsidized. They took billions. WTO agreed with us.. but that still didn't matter. Good luck getting them to do what is right. But we MUST bow to the almighty walmart.

Even in the recent past couple of years Canada has been playing catchup. With its own set. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050325-4734.html/ http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2016/275/

Highly highly unfair toward the GP.

I discourage my friends from infringing copyright, and I don't do it myself. It's ethically and legally wrong.

It is wrong because it's copyright infringement, it is not wrong because it's theft. In Montreal we have ads before theater showings that have the tag line "Piracy...it's theft". No it's not theft. It's copyright infringement. Why does the industry get to redefine and incorrectly use language this way then use that language to justify new laws and police style organizations?

TFA:

according to the MPAA head. No, it's not theft. It is NOT theft. And yet the MPAA gets away with this re-definition of words for marketing purposes. It makes a person frustrated which explains the language of the OP. If I was 10 years younger I'd be using the same language.

The MPAA does not get the benefit of the doubt. I don't trust their numbers, their language, or their motivation. Particularly when I'm aware of an Industry Canada study that shows

Ref

Unfortunately this misbehaviour by the MPAA makes it easy to dismiss everything they say, including the fact that copyright infringement is wrong. If geek culture wants to have it's voice heard in the mainstream it must be seen to be on the right side of that issue. The MPAA is scary, and illegal downloading is wrong. Both these things are true.

I am very concerned about the upcoming potential copyright reform legislation as discussed by Law professor Michael Geist at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2419/125/. From what is presented, it seems that the suggested legislation will be in step with the DMCA of the US, which, as you are probably aware of, some consider rather draconian in nature.

I have two points for your consideration that I would like to focus on:

1) We have recently, relative to human history, developed technology that enables producers and consumers of art to collaborate and communicate on a level practicably inconceivable only a few generations ago. Unless we plan on halting all advances in computer hardware and software, which seems unlikely, we must admit to ourselves that this technology fundamentally changes the way we do business in that it greatly decreases, potentially eliminating in some cases, the need for a connecting agent between producers and consumers. Understandably, any currently existing entities that act as such agents do not enjoy entertaining this fact but it is just that: a fact.

2) Copyright legistation does not only effect commercial enterprise; it effects all Canadians, including (but not limited to) independant artists, local media outlets, and, perhaps of particular importance, educators and students. It does more than regulate financial transactions; it has a direct impact on our cultural environment. Any reforms that focus primarily on the commercial scope of copyright law run the risk of alienating those inspired to participate in the development and promotion of Canadian culture.

Thank you for your time.

The new Canadian legislation will likely mirror the DMCA with strong anti-circumvention legislation - far beyond what is needed to comply with the WIPO Internet treaties - and address none of the issues that concern millions of Canadians. The Conservatives promise to eliminate the private copying levy will likely be abandoned. There will be no flexible fair dealing. No parody exception. No time shifting exception. No device shifting exception. No expanded backup provision. Nothing.

The new Canadian legislation will likely mirror the DMCA with strong anti-circumvention legislation - far beyond what is needed to comply with the WIPO Internet treaties - and address none of the issues that concern millions of Canadians. The Conservatives promise to eliminate the private copying levy will likely be abandoned. There will be no flexible fair dealing. No parody exception. No time shifting exception. No device shifting exception. No expanded backup provision. Nothing.

That Geist guy rules. Here is a link on what you are referring to:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2251/125/

CC

Geist's list of 30 things you can do, linked to in TFS, is pretty good, actually, no matter where you live. Even if your country already has a DMCA-like law, you can still fight for it or certain provisions of it to be repealed. Just replace the Canadian-sepcific info with the equivalents in your country.

Furthermore, some of it just plain good advice -- only buy DRM-free music and videos, release stuff under the Creative Commons licenses. And so forth.

Most of you are gonna be like, yeah, yeah, but no one cares. That's not true anymore. Now that the MAFIAA have become a nuisance and even public enemy #1 as far as some are concerned, the public will push for change. Like it or not, most politicians eventually cave to public opinion. After all, they need the public's support in order to get elected.

According to a study by Industry Canada, file sharers actually buy more music than non-file sharers. All file sharing allows people to do is to find music that they like much easier. The more stuff they find that they like, the more money they will spend on music. If you've only ever heard of Britney Spears, because that's all the radio ever plays, then you can't buy that many CDs.

Like a certain Canadian ISP is doing now.

Having said that, I hope it scares the crap out of Comcast (and any other ISP dumb enough to try this).

I hope it scares the crap out of every ISP that promotes high speed internet connections for large file transfers, while manipulating traffic behind the scenes.

For example, Rogers in Canada which states "Enjoy the next generation of Internet service great for sharing large files and much more", while throttling the P2P services (or any encrypted connection) that are required for the very same as reported here.

Actually two of them:

1. What hardware/software would carriers have to use to do this?

2. Can it be defeated?

Fwiw, Rogers cable in Canada is rumored to be doing the same thing (and perhaps more). Michael Geist talks about this on his blog: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1859/

People might find the views of a Canadian IP Lawyer interesting. He seems to think that the copyright claim is non-sense, and the official mark one likely won't fly based on recent Supreme court rulings.

I dunno much about either, but the copyright on an image from 1937 does seem like a stretch. Maybe someone should have some t-shirts printed and really rub it in.

Credit where credit is due: this comes via Michael Geist.

3. Congratulations. I'm happy for you that file sharing "has been determined to be legal" in your country.

4. Question. Was the "determination" in a "code" or was it a judge's decision interpreting the code?

5. Question. Do you want the judge's decision to be "perpetuated", or would you rather leave it up to other judges to ignore it because it was "misguided"?

6. I am guessing that
-it was a decision by a judge, because the "code" did not specify whether file sharing was legal or not, and

[...]the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of [a sound recording] 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.

-you would want other judges to follow that decision, rather than for each new case to be a guessing game as to what the judge's personal opinion will be.

7. People need to know, when they wake up in the morning, how to plan their lives so they don't run afoul of the law. They need to know what the law is, and can't have a random system where each judge's personal opinion is all that counts. And no legislator is so much of a prophet that he can write a code that will cover all eventualities. Sometimes one needs a judge to apply the law to the facts. So you see, the 2 systems are not so dissimilar after all. And you are not so different than the people you are attacking. You too, want good judicial decisions to be followed by future judges.

However, the main advantage of a civil code is that cases are very rarely murky so the outcome can be most often determined early enough to keep down litigation to an acceptable level.

Maybe we don't need a "pirate party" per se, but we need more people representing the "other side" of the copyright debate. The current Conservative government stated in their platform from the last election that they would eliminate the 'levy" on blank media (look under Section 35 Copyright Legislation). Well, that certainly has not happened, and the music industry is lobbying them hard to extend the tax to other forms of media. Add to that the efforts of industry shills from the US who would like Canada to radify WIPO and enact legislation similar to the DMCA, and I would say we are currently at a serious disadvantage.

It's not just that. It's about deceit. The cell companies led consumers to think that the system access fee was mandated by the Canadian government, when in fact it wasn't.

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2246/196//

It's part of the reason behind the tarifs we pay on storage media (as much as $25 on an iPod, for example).

Michael Geist recently wrote on his website about this topic and how it applies in Canada. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that the arbitration clause was enforceable and that the use of a hyperlink was sufficient.

Rogers (a Canadian ISP) is rumoured to be throttling tunneled traffic on its cable Internet service.

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1859/?a=1

Really, it's getting to the point that if you use your high-speed Internet for anything beyond simple web surfing and email, you're the enemy.

So before you act all indignant-like better double-check the actions of your representatives.

I can't verify it now (damn firewall!), but I'm pretty sure this is the video explaining how to get Canadian legislation passed...

It's not just you. Most of us who pay the levy feel the same way! Incidentally, the iPod levy was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada a couple of years ago, but the CPCC (Canadian Private Copyright Collective) is currently in the process of trying to ram through another levy, this time covering iPods and flash cards for your camera as well (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2112/125/ ).

This has nothing to do with downloading music illegally and putting it on your iPod.

the courts disagree with your interpretation

Well according to various federal courts of Canada (including rulings by the Supreme Court) it is legal to download music and it is also to make your shared music folder available over the internet. Sounds to me like sharing is legal though purposely sending music to someone would still be illegal.
See for example http://www.michaelgeist.ca/resc/html_bkup/may30200 5.html or for the text of the Supreme Court decision http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2004/2004scc45 /2004scc45.html