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'!"
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.
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.