Slashdot Mirror
Bad News From Canada On NetTV And Media Levies
twilight30 writes "Canadian regulators ruled Friday that it is illegal to put broadcast TV signals onto the Internet without permission, dashing the hopes of entrepreneurs hoping to create new Net TV businesses.
An alternate link to the original at CNet is here."
And Dr Caleb writes "In response to this Slashdot story I emailed my Member of Parlament. He responded to me today to say that "Despite strong opposition by the Canadian Alliance to these and other aspects of the bill, the Minister of Canadian Heritage won the day and Bill C-32 Copyright Legislation is now law." And further to say "The law assumes guilt that everyone who buys a blank tape or CD is pirating music - but anyone who uses CDs for data storage, for instance, knows that's not true!"
Distressing that the bill has passed, but refreshing that my MP 'gets it'!"
The Canadian Alliance is the opposition party at the moment. The Minister of whatever is from the governing party. The governing party determines who is prime minister, finance minister, etc.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
The bill may or may not have passed (still trying to find some confirmation on the various government websites), but the actual hearing on the "proposed" amounts to be charged for the levies on blank media for the 2003-2004 period is just starting (tomorrow actually).
I'm on the official objectors list for the proposed levy, and there is some pretty convincing evidence being presented at the hearing that the proposed levies are WAY too high and should be struck down.
It will be interesting to see the outcome. If it passes the market for blank media and mp3 players in Canada will be hit hard.
The Canadian Alliance is the official opposition. The Minister, in this case responsible for culture/heritage and a member of the Liberal party, championed the bill for "artist's rights" (I guess) and with the support of the Liberal party, which has a majority, pushed it through. I guess the Liberals also miss the point that independent artists (well, OK, NO artists as of now) are getting any money from the levy.
Unfortunately, we live in a not so benevolent dictatorship where one guy rules the roost. In a majority government, there are no real checks and balances: the Senate is pretty toothless here. Ever read Piet Hein? Majority Rule is a pretty cool poem.
I'm sure that Stand On Guard will give you a better perspective on Canadian politics.
The Canadian Alliance is a political party that is not in power right now. The Minister of Heritage is a member of the party in power now (the Liberals). Since it's a majority government, the party in power can do whatever they want, and the other parties can just slow things down a bit.
There is no viable alternative to the Liberals, so they can and do whatever they want.
For example, a vet got his benefits cut off due to a government error. His representitive (who happened to be Liberal)said "you didn't vote for me, why should I help you?" The prime minister backed up the representitive and basically said they shouldn't have to do anything since they're in charge.
There's hundreds of examples, but Canada is basically being run as a tyranny now, and this new law being muscled through is just another example.
Jason
ProfQuotes
Each riding (electoral area) elects 1 representative to the federal government, each elected person is a Member of Parliment (MP).
The political party with the most seats is the governing party, the second most is the opposition.
The other parties don't have official titles.
From the ruling party (generally) all the departments/minitries are run by an MP, the opposition gets their critic for each.
Then they get in a big room, and argue with each other.
That is the house of commons.
Under Canadian law it was LEGAL to rebroadcast television without permission. That is how the cable companies in Canada started operating in the first place, but now that they are entrenched and everybody is happy with the status quo they flipped the decision when it is applied to the internet.
(by the way, it was perfectly legal to rebroadcast via radiowaves, so geographical local was irrelevent.)
But don't worry, regulators don't read legislation anyway.
I'm Canadian, and I know there are lot of Canadians who also share the same ignorance/lack of information on how our Canadian government works but I hope this helps:
The Canadian Alliance is the "Opposition party" or the group of elected individuals in our House of Commons (sorta like the House of Representatives in the states). The difference in our elected officials is that we have more than just two large parties. There's the Liberal Party of Canada, NDP, PC Party of Canada and other parties like the Green Party, The Communist party, etc. (I don't have their URLs, but I'm sure google would help)
To better understand Canadian government, check this out: Structure of the Government of Canada
The Minister of Canadian Heritage is this person named Sheila Copps who is in charge of keeping Canadian Culture 'Canadian'. A lot of people don't like what she does as a lot of times it removes freedoms from the people of Canada and makes things more expensive (our taxes pay for her position and her policies/ideas).
To answer your actual question: Is this one individual overruling a lobbying type group or a governmental group?
The bill became law despite the Canadian Alliance fighting against it.
For anyone who cares, since the article is awful short on facts and information...
The loophole that has been closed was the right for anyone to re-broadcast a radio or television signal (not cable, we're talking from the airwaves) even without the permission of the originators or owners of the copyright of said material. I do believe there were certain guidelines which had to be followed, the re-broadcast couldn't be edited, and I'm not sure about whether it had to be in near real time or not. Basicly I think it was intended such that a given broadcast could be passed along independant repeaters so that it would have a further range into more remote areas of Canada so that more Canadians could take advantage of the programming.
The bright minded start up companies realized that this might mean they could capture the tv signals their antennas pick up and then re-broadcast those on the net. Incidentally, this included broadcasts from cities close to the US/Canadian border.
FYI, it is legal in Canada to rebroadcast television channels so long as it is not modified. (I don't recall any stipulations to that) There are special exceptions to the non-modification clause in that Canadian channels are permitted to play localized advertising over foreign content, as long as the same program is played. For example, we never see U.S. Superbowl commercials. We get the same game. But Canadian commercials.
So rebroadcasting over the internet is perfectly legal, perhaps immoral, but certainly legal in Canada, up until this latest decree. As someone noted elsewhere, Cable companies in Canada get money from customers for the method of distribution, not the content.
That's right, hence the huge outcry. They charge a "per gigabyte" fee on those mp3 players instead of a "per device" nominal fee. meaning that as the hard drives get bigger they make more money, at your expense.
That's completely different. Back in the early days of CATV there were vast sections of the US that could not receive a broadcast signal. Accordingly, CATV actually benefited the broadcasters because it created a larger audience.
Today, however, nearly everyone with a broadband internet connection is in a location to receive the major networks. So there is no advantage for the networks. And secondly, if allowed and if it became successful, it would hurt the local affiliates.
I need to be more specific. There is the old media levy, Bill C-32, from 1997. There is no new media levy. As other posters have pointed out any changes to the levy will be done by the Copyright Board.
It is worth pointing out to the international readers that Canadian Legislation tends to be either massive overhauls of existing laws in the form of complete rewrites or small very specific changes. The latter is more common.
I find in the records from last session:
And I gave up crack hours ago."History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
My computer can do all that with the signal from my satellite dish too. Should satellite be illegal?
The legalities of all this were hashed out in the betamax case.
It should be illegal for the internet broadcasters to modify the signal (by trimming commercials). I said this in my original post. But as far as the end user's ability to trim commercials, it makes absolutely no difference whether it comes from an internet stream, a satellite signal, cable, or broadcast.
Jason
ProfQuotes
You don't have to pay to mail your Member of Parliament. Just mark the letter "On Her Majesty's Service" and mail it to their office. No $0.48 needed, even for a real letter.
People pay the government (in Canada and the US)all the time for services they never use. It's a way of life. If this media levy is the biggest concern to be found, people really aren't looking hard enough. Grab a copy of the budget and start searching for some real injustices!
What's in a Sig?
.....for an update of our copyright laws. I don't like the mandatory levies, but there are NO anti-circumvention provisions, and fair use (fair dealing) right are pretty well affirmed.
It could be a LOT worse!!!
An increasing number of Americans think otherwise -- and put their money where their mouth is by subscribing to one of Canada's two satellite services, Bell ExpressVu and StarChoice.
For Cdn$40.99/month (about US$26), I get local Canadian TV from every time zone coast to coast (including Atlantic and Newfoundland), full US network feeds from Boston and Seattle (try that on DirecTV), a boatload of U.S. and Canadian cable channels, BBC World news (very important in the current CNN-fueled war frenzy).
Legalities? Nothing in the U.S. prevents it, and in Canada it's simply a big game of don't ask, don't tell with the satellite providers.
Sure, Canadian TV is often a load of rebroadcasted U.S. tripe, but the news and public affairs programming is worth its weight in gold -- would that more Americans know a little bit more about the rest of the world.
As an ex 'Multi Cable System' owner ( I sold in '99 ) I would like to correct a comment made about "Cable Companies in Canada getting money from customers for the method of distribution, not the content".
Cable Comapanies pay for most of the Channels that they carry on their systems. An example - CBC News World was $.55/month/subscriber to my small systems. TSN was about $1.00/m/s. Most Canadian and American Channels have agreements with the Cable Company and the number of subscibers is tallied each month for payment. The internet could work much the same if you could count the content users and get them to pay. Free is not an option.