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Canada Immune From RIAA?
Nick McKay writes "Tech Central Station is carrying a story on how Canadians are legally allowed to copy music not only in the home environment, but also on P2P networks such as Kazaa."
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"Canada Immune From RIAA?"
Being that the last letter in RIAA stands for "America", I would hope that all nations outside of the US are immune..
Trolling is a art,
To quote Jay Currie (emphasis mine):
Audio recording media is defined as "Analog Audio Casette Tapes," "MiniDisc, CD-R Audio and CD-RW Audio" and "CD-R and CD-RW." [2] This does not include hard drives (I recall discussion of extending the levy to hard drives), so therefore your hard drive is not "audio recording media" and thus the Act does not legalize file sharing.
This being said, it would be harder to argue if you immediately burned the downloaded songs to an audio CD, promptly deleting the copy on your hard drive.
I am proud to be a Canadian. Especially after seeing Bowling for Columbine... makes you think huh!
The amendment to the Act legalized copying of sound recordings of musical works onto audio recording media for the private use of the person who makes the copy (referred to as "private copying"). In addition, the amendment made provision for the imposition of a levy on blank audio recording media to compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright in eligible sound recordings being copied for private use.
Looks the same as fair use in the U.S.A. Moreover, the author of this article says that the DMCA is what makes file sharing illegal in the U.S.A. This isn't true, and probably hints at the level of understanding the author has of the situation. Unfortunately, people are going to start believing this. The author could be sued.
"sure it does canada is just another big US state like Wisconsin or Minnesota...."
Canada is bigger in area then the USA, and the 3rd largest country in the world...so read it and weep.
Does this guy know how many megabytes are on a typical CD-R? or on a new hard drive? Let's see, the tax on a new 120Gig drive would be, what, $1200?
So that means every time you buy a CD to backup your Word documents, or photos, or home movies etc you pay a $0.77 tax which ends up going to the music industry.
They give it with one hand and take it with the other.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
Just because Canada has made the RIAA's pound of fless into an official tax does not make it FREE.
Would you rather have the taxes in the US rise to absorb the problem, which the RIAA still gets paid? That's extremely "out of sight, out of mind".
Freedom isn't about not having to face the individual details. It's not about having the Big Government spare you from the responsibility of having to think for yourself. On the contrary.
I would rather grapple with the RIAA single-handedly, than have the RIAA become some sort of a Federal pork barrel. That's Freedom! Having to fend for yourself. Forcing the RIAA, and others like them, to try and extort what they think is theirs from children, in plain view of everyone, instead of behind the shroud of "Gummit".
That's Freedom. The Canadian way of dealing with this problem is more Socialist than Free. That's no insult to Socialism, as it is a great system in terms of social welfare and such, but Socialist protections over business? Why, that's the core of the definition of Fascism, minus the Nationalistic chest-pounding.
I'd rather have the lawsuits and RIAA absurdity kept in plain sight, thanks.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
file sharing isn't a crime, though - it's a civil offense for which the RIAA sues your butt off...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
This media levy pisses me off to no end - I've bought 100's of CD-R's over the years and I've used exactly 3 for music - and that was just for music that I already owned.
I don't want free music, I want cheaper recordable media! I'm not sure about this $0.77 per CD though - I'm sure i've bought CD's for $0.50 before on spindles.
This levy is utter B.S. I mean why not compensate SOFTWARE publishers as well as musicians? I wonder what the ratio is of pirated music vs. pirated software - especially if you take the MSRP of software - i mean it takes a lot of music CD's to equal the cost of one copy of 3ds MAX or Photoshop.
Universal health care? Check.
9 00-1999.html ).
;).
Lax marijuana laws? Check.
Can marry another man if for some reason I was feeling saucey? Check.
and now freedom to share music?
Canada has always been very free, for example Canada (BC, Quebec) did away with prohibition years (1921 vs. 1933), with the rest of the provinces following soon after, before America ( http://www.sleeman.com/en/heritage/crafthistory-1
The problem with Americans saying that they are the freest country is that they tend to believe it even if it isnt necessarily so. Self denial and delusion prevents the problem being resolved; ask alcoholics anonymous and why the first step is admitting there is a problem
It really cracks me up that the US would sooner send their young ones to die in pointless wars than let them have a beer.
Guess it really sucks to be you. Here you can buy beer from the age of 16, and you're not sent into imperialistic wars, only to die in a cold trench, long from home and without any beer.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I would like to direct your attention to the Private Copying section of the Canadian Copyright act here.
Specifically, 80.2(c) -- Subsection (1) [the private copying exception] does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following : (c) communicating to the public by telecommunication;
In order for file sharing as we know it to be legal, you would have to make the argument that putting something up on Kazaa is NOT communicating to the public by telecommunications.
I'm not saying it can't be done (indeed, I don't belive any of this has ever actually been tested in court), but good fucking luck.
Something like dc++ with a private hub between friends would be a much less challenging scenario to argue, as the general public isn't involved.
Note that the intent of this law was that people would be able to share music (note that this ONLY applies to MUSICAL AUDIO RECORDINGS -- spoken word recordings, or even sound effect recordings (and certainly not video) aren't covered by this) with thier family and friends without it being illegal. Basically, they looked at the fact that most people would be considered criminals under the current laws, and decided that there's really no point in that, and used the situation as an excuse to find another way for the goverenment to get money out of people. But since you're Canadian, you're used to that by now.
Kazaa and such are not for that purpose -- they are intended to share music with the anonymous internet in exchange for getting music you want back from the anonymous interent. If you ever wind up in court, and try and defend yourself with this exception, the intent of the law is going to be taken into account by the judge.
I hate to break the news, but we've been paying the same tax since the mid 1980's. Al Gore was one of the sponsors of a digital revenue bill that passed back then. As a studio owner in Nashville, I got a copy of the bill before it was passed. It levied a tax on all blank media, not just digital, and a tax of up to $100. on all digital recorders imported into the US. I don't know if that's the final version that passed, but it did pass. one phrase that stuck out to me was that the revenues generated would go into a pool which would be split up among artists "after due administrative costs have been deducted". All I know is that I've paid that tax on every cassette, DAT, reel of tape, and CD-R that I've used since then, even though my business(radio commercials) involves only releasing content created by me.
This made me think of an interesting aspect of globalization and migration.
Governments are starting to realize that the future health of their nations depend on encouraging immigration (in the case of coountries with ageing populations) and discouraging emmigration (in the case of countries losing their citizens).
A large part of the USA's economic and political strength comes from its attractiveness to migrants, especially skilled migrants. Compare the USA's Green Card programme with the immigration programmes offered by EU countries...
Now, Canada is to many migrants as attractive as the US, just slightly colder, maybe. It certainly has a reputation as being more hospitable for political refugees than most EU countries.
P2P is just one of many civil liberties, but if one takes the value of migration to a logical extreme, won't we see future governments actively competing for skilled migrants, offering better legal systems, more civil liberties, easier integration, etc. etc.
It's an optimistic viewpoint, but perhaps globalization will bring competition into governance in a way never seen before. Living in a country is, after all, a vote and an investment.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Speaking of technicalities, isn't the law dependent on who makes the copy?
Every song on my hard drive comes from a CD in my collection or from a CD in someone else's collection which I have found on a P2P network. In either case I will have made the copy and will claim safe harbor under the "private copying" provision. If you find that song in my shared folder and make a copy this will also be "private copying." I have not made you a copy, rather you have downloaded the song yourself.
If I am sharing a file and you download it, who is really copying the file. My computer still has to copy it from one medium (disk storage) to another TCP packets. So who is really making the copy... And legally, does it matter?
-a
Sure, this levy _may_ provide some so far untested court protection for 'file sharers', but it is extremely unpopular at our local LUG with those who backup their data to media that are covered by the levy.
Parliament already has plans to expand the list of media covered by the levy to hard drives, flash memory, and mp3 players and at the same time they plan to raise the per MB fee. This will _significantly_ raise the cost of recordably media for all computer users whether they are file sharers or not.
At pennies a MB you can kiss your 200GB hard drive goodbye, so long iPod, and whoah look at the cost of digital cameras! And all because our local music industry has convinced Canadian parliament that we are _all_ guilty of trading music online and that enforcing the previously existing laws that assumed innocence until proven guilty would be too expensive.
Don't get me wrong, there is plenty not to like about the RIAA, their tactics, and the DMCA but don't be fooled into thinking it's all sunshine on this side of the border.
Agreed. Also, while Canada tends not to be subject to having its politicans 'purchased' by corporate interests (as is the case in the USA; Canada has laws curtailing such activity), Canada is just ridiculously vulnerable to American trade sanctions, forcing it to fall in line with American demands.
It is orders of magnitude easier for American Corporations and 'Associations' to successfully lobby for sanctions against Canadian interests, than to have laws passed that piss on bonifide American citizens (especially since the current administration doesn't feel bound by any international agreements signed in the past). And we all know how easy it is for them to have laws passed that piss on the rights and freedoms of Americans.
Canada is even more subject to the whims of the RIAA and MPAA than the USA proper. It just happens to be so small, it is currently falling beneath their interest. That will change if they succeed in squashing file sharing in the USA.
Funny thing is I don't think our life expectancy is much less than that of the average American even considering many of us get eaten by animals because of more rigorous gun laws.
I've lived in Canada all my life and let me tell you we've got our gun nuts too - this argument is one I haven't heard yet though.
Since corperations vote with their dollars, I'd rather combat them by voting with my dollars. The more of my money my government depends on to represent me, the less my government needs/wants from corperations to represent *them*.
Neither system is perfect, but I really do think that the US is basically like Canada; only corperations are the benifactors of government-supported welfare (for things like entering foreign markets risk-free or controlling the market by 'purchasing' policy/law makers) instead of people.
With that said, it should be a free world. I don't think either system is 'right', but I'd rather be in Canada, and know what I'm paying upfront and what I'm getting for it, rather than fighting tooth and nail every day, everytime a corperate interest decides it wants the rules changed.
I see higher taxes as a form of insurance against corperate oligarchies, and I'm all too happy to pay as long as I believe it's working to a reasonable degree.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Audio cassettes 40 minutes or more in length: $.29 each
Audio cassettes less than 40 minutes long: $0
CD-Rs and CD-RWs (100 megabytes or more in capacity): $.21 each
CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio and MiniDisc: $.77 each
Removable electronic memory card, removable flash memory storage medium of any type, or removable micro-hard drive: not covered
DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM or any other type of recordable or rewritable DVD: not covered
Non-removable electronic memory card or non-removable flash memory storage medium of any type incorporated into an MP3 player: not covered
Non-removable hard drive incorporated into an MP3 player or similar device ... primarily to record and play music.: not covered
Microcassettes (commonly used in dictating machines): $0
Digital audio tapes (DATs): $0
As you can see, the 77 cents people keep mentioning in their posts only applies to those CD-R specifically designated for recording audio, which nobody uses anyway (although there are some standalone audio CD recording units which require them).
What I find insulting is that I run a recording studio, and every single cd I buy for my own or my clients' music puts a little money into the pockets of people like Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne... although I recently discovered that, if you import CDs for your own use (i.e. buy them online from outside canada) the levy doesn't apply.
Wow....I bet a Canadian company could make a fortune selling high speed Internet access to those in the US, Or possibly just a high speed proxy service.
Then when the RIAA asked them for the user of the IP that is 'stealing' their music...they could tell them to take a flying leap
I was also thinking about this, but technically, in order to listen to the mp3's hosted in Canada you'd still have to download them. And downloading = making a copy, which is what is illegal (right?). So how could you listen to them without downloading? (or streaming.. whatever). At what point is the "crime" committed? When you listen to the music, or when you download it? Is there a distinction?
If you were to call someone in Canada (over the phone) who had a private stash, and played one of the songs over the phone, and you recorded it onto your computer while it was playing, would that be illegal?
IANAL obviously.. I just think these are interesting questions.
Would you rather have the taxes in the US rise to absorb the problem, which the RIAA still gets paid? That's extremely "out of sight, out of mind".
So should it be free? Remember, there are people at the other end of this - artists. While I disagree with the RIAA's tactics, and the entire way the operate, I don't disagree there should be some kind of organization.
The record companies themselves are somewhat of a necessary evil. You can't walk into a bank and get a $1-millon loan to produce a record, that you may or may not be able to pay back. Record companies do this all the time, and a large percentage of bands can't actually pay back the advance. They basically bank on the fact that a small percentage is making a ton of money, giving them the ability to spend a few hundred thousand on a band that doesn't 'make it', and not care.
As far as this P2P stuff, the RIAA screwed themselves by not embracing it when it first started, and making it a profitable business. Think if Napster had charged a monthly access fee to use it (which I think was one of their original intentions). The RIAA could have used that to pay for royalties, and still would have been able to keep track of statistics for both royalty payment and popularity purposes*.
Instead, they ignored it, and litigated against it. And are now litigating against their customers (though, their argument is they aren't customers). I'm pretty sure that anyone who's just been forced to pay $12,000 to the RIAA is not going to be paying another $20 for a CD anytime soon.
As a Canadian, I really don't have a problem paying this 'CD tax' if it means it's legal for me to download the music I want without having to buy a CD full of stuff I don't. It's really not the best way to do it since it both affects people that are using CD's for other purposes, and misses the people that don't put music on CD's (and just store them as MP3's).
* They could get direct-from-consumer information about what people are listening to. Right now, the closest they can get is by looking at things like request shows - though that's only counting votes from people willing to call a 1-900 number. That's some seriously valuable information.
Speak before you think
"In fact, you could not have designed a law which more perfectly captures the peer to peer process. "Private copying" is a term of art in the Act. In Canada, if I own a CD and you borrow it and make a copy of it that is legal private copying; however, if I make you a copy of that same CD and give it to you that would be infringement. Odd, but ideal for protecting file sharers.
Every song on my hard drive comes from a CD in my collection or from a CD in someone else's collection which I have found on a P2P network. In either case I will have made the copy and will claim safe harbor under the "private copying" provision. If you find that song in my shared folder and make a copy this will also be "private copying." I have not made you a copy, rather you have downloaded the song yourself."
I disagree. The uploader's computer, is the one making the copy and sending it to the downloader. So it sounds like p2p sharing of copyrighted material is illegal in Canada.
Vote for Pedro
I've examined the Copyright Act before over this specific issue. While it is obvious that the Act permits, say, the copying of borrowed cds, it is not obvious that it allows large-scale peer-to-peer networks. Certainly a small P2P network consisting of friends and aquaintences would fall under "private copying", but transferring files to millions of random people can hardly be called "private" anything. There are sufficient grounds for a good legal fight over this.
At the same time, I don't expect the CPCC (~RIAA) to adopt the RIAA's tactics anytime soon. People here have a much more lassiez-faire attitude towards these things, and as long as they don't get totally out of control (ie : people still buy the odd cd they really want), the copyright holders probably won't try to fight an unwinnable war.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
As the RIAA's "sue your customer" campaign begins to run into stiffening opposition and serious procedural obstacles it may be time to think about a "Plan B". A small levy on storage media, say a penny a megabyte, would be more lucrative than trying to extract 60 million dollars from a music obsessed, file sharing, thirteen year-old.
Not particularly. Who here would pay $7 extra per CD-R (I can get them for less than a buck in Canada)? Or an extra $48 on DVD-R media? Americans would be outraged, and would import en-masse from outside of the country, probably from Canada.
Oh, wait, I get it now... Why didn't I think of that?
--Dan
drugs are the last peice of freedom you should be worried about, allright? thanks to cretien and his liberal anti-terrorist bills, by just associating with me, a potential terrorist, YOU BECOME A POTENTIAL TERRORIST! there is no freedom of association, the freedoms of the press are a joke, freedom of expression never did exist (it was limited from the start in our "charter of rights and freedoms"), the military can declare ANY zone or area under military law, the banks have mandatory obligations to csis to report any suspicious activity and to report all credit and financial transactions you do to them...we can be deported to the united states, CANADIAN CITIZENS, for not even being accused of committing a crime---all you have to do is be a potential terorrist and you can be thrown to places like syria, saudi arabia, and the united states where torture is legal. we do not have the right to bear arms, and religious laws DO and continue to be passed, and will continue to do so until canada is no longer a country under god. do i have to mention the FLQ and the notwithstanding clause? do i have to mention known cases of canadians breaking american law, and fbi/SecretService people coming up and arresting people?
what rights do we HAVE in canada? a country with kangaroo terrorist trials behind closed doors where you don't even get a lawyer(After all, if a lawyer aids a terrorist he can be charged). and try to defend against a federal prosecutor throwing a terrorism charge or two at you, without a lawyer. goood luck.
so what rights do we HAVE? the right not to be in federal prison for fucking marijuana posession? what a joke. i hope we both get thrown in the same deportation cell so i can knock your ignorant teeth in.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
/* DISCLAIMER
This is not legal advice. You are not a client. I'm not even an attorney. If you want legal advice, contact an attorney. What I am saying here is probably 100% wrong and if you do anything based on it, you are a flaming idiot who deserves whatever bad shit is very likely to befall you.
DISCLAIMER */
Arrite, now that that's outta the way . . .
File sharing IS a crime under the No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act if the material infringed has a retail value of greater than $1,000. Read it - if you're convicted, the court will order your computer destroyed AND order you trotted off to chokey.
The poster is correct that Canada and the US have an extradition treaty. However, as evidenced by the recent abortion killer case, extradition treaties are not absolute. France only agreed to give him up on the condition that the US would not seek the death penalty against him.
For me, a hometown example of this is a contemptible piece of human garbage named Martin Pang. This guy torched his family's frozen food warehouse so he could collect the insurance money, resulting in the deaths of four firefighters. Brazil refused to extradite him unless we agreed to not charge him with murder. (Under Washington's felony murder rule, if someone gets killed during the course of a felony, you go down for murder one.)
Bum deal, huh? Well, not always. Especially during the Cold War, the US and other civilized countries regularly refused to extradite people back to their communist shitpiles^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H countries who were wanted for political "crimes" on the grounds that those were not extraditable offenses. So, it works both ways.
The point is, I'm sure that if someone were charged with a file-trading related crime in America and fled to Canada, the latter would take the position that file trading-related "crimes" are not extraditable offenses. They did so with the Vietnam war draft dodgers - Canada took the position that crimes related to avoidance of military service were not extraditable. In fact, if it's not a crime in Canada, the odds are that they would not extradite.
Hope this clears up any confusion. But read the disclaimer above carefully before you do anything. Plus, I haven't read the extradition treaty, so I could be wrong and it could be an extraditable offense.
We're 1/10th the size of the US. At the time, possibly even smaller, as we've embarked on agressive immigration since WW2. Our casualties were proportional to theirs.
Also of note is that during WWI, 3/10ths of the adult male Canadian population served in the war, and 56,500 were killed, 149,700 wounded. Hell, at Vimy Ridge we had 10,000 casualties and deaths in one day, out of 100,000 men there. We've always shouldered our share.
Pearl Harbour annd 911,....hmm...yup, just out of the blue really. No one could have known eh?
Since when did propaganda become journalism? It's not more legal to make a copy of a CD or downloading MP3s here than smoking pot. The only difference here is in Canada we don't actively pursue people who transgress the law, you don't see police officers going door to door to check if everything is legal in your house eh?
The fact that the RIAA has the kind of power to come and check your PERSONAL logs at your ISP and check if you're downloading something illegal is as dubious as someone putting a videocam in my home and watching me then using the tapes against me. It's just plain unethical and illegal, you can't just barge in.
Authorities take 2-10 years to make strong cases against people, why would the RIAA just take logs and use them inside a week? Can i get arrested for saying on the net "I'm going to kill him" as a joke and then the person gets killed the day after? How strong can an ISP log be used as evidence?
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
How about 25 million russian deaths?
What does that have to do with anything?
if you consider waiting 9-12 months for a fairly simple eye surgery "better," then you'd be correct. However, paying an exorbitant amount of taxes to wait months on end for necessary surgery isn't worth it in my mind. You must also take into account that many doctors are considering leaving canada for the US because of the wage limits. So basically, take the not-so-cream-of-the-crop doctors, add in huge waiting periods, but call it free, and it's automatically better than any other system? I'd rather pay for my care now than get it for free when it could possibly be too late.
So are you SURE they were really Canadians?
Last I looked, Canadas' 2 official languages were english and french. So what language did he say "Americans don't know anything about the rest of the world" in, if he/she actually made that statement? Also, a lot of Americans don't know how many states there are in the Union (they keep forgetting about Hawaii and Alaska), so that's not a giveaway as to nationality, either.
So stop trolling :-)
Hardly. We're not blinded by flagwaving and being led around by the nose into wars that shouldn't have been waged in the way they were.
We were right beside the US until the US decided "fuck the UN". That's where we draw the line.
Unfortunately, you're too blinded to see the truth, and amusingly call our clearer vision "navel gazing" - which is what I suspect you meant, as staring at ships isn't related to nihilism.
Once again, we wait to get smacked in the head (Pearl Harbor) before we actually do something.
Do you prefer the more recent scheme of going around and smacking everyone else in the head?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
How about 500,000 US Military deaths in WWII vs. 39,000 for Canada?
Holy shit. Human casualty numbers from a totally insane global war are not a basis for any pissing contest. Please, let's put this one aside.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
1. Making and promoting an album only costs a million dollars because the industry wants it to cost a million dollars because that keeps out competition and they get to deduct all the costs from the artists' shares. P2P systems and internet radio threaten the music distribution oligopoly, which is the real reason that the RIAA has declared war. There is some evidence that during the period that the RIAA says their music sales dropped, the sales of independant music went up and that total music sales is actually up.
2. The problem I have with the US media tax is that the money goes to the RIAA members, not the artists, not smaller music labels. Even if the law were changed to that I actually bought some rights to share music when I paid my media tax, I still wouldn't like it.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I'd sure like to know the conditions of "victory" in the US books. Surely they're not suggesting Canada invaded the US!?
Does Canada have a founding document as potent as the US Constitution or are they still bent over for the Queen?
Arguably more potent, since it was enacted in 1982. People have had over two centuries to erode the fundamental rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. Here is a link to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Slashdot readers will be particularily interested in the following clauses : 2, 7, 8 & 9.
I would like to draw special attention to clauses 15 and 26.
15. Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
26. The guarantee in this Charter of certain rights and freedoms shall not be construed as denying the existence of any other rights or freedoms that exist in Canada.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
I feel that my right to maintain the cultural meaning of "marriage" outweighs the right of others to call their nontraditional (homosexual or polamorous) romantic union a marriage.
You can only use "cultural" in that sense to mean "religion", because some religions allow a person to have multiple spouses, and other religions allow same-sex marriages (it was a church in Toronto that challenged the law and married two gay men). Since your country claims to have freedom of religion, then having the government pass a law that makes the practices of several religions illegal, only on the grounds of maintaining the "cultural meaning" of a word is a violation of your country's constitution. Not to mention, an unnecessary restriction of freedoms.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I feel that my right to maintain the cultural meaning of
Pfft... you have no "right to maintain the cultural meaning of" anything. That isn't a *right*, any more than the prohibitionists had the right to enforce their values on the rest of American society. Or supporters of slavery could enforce their values on blacks. Or the Catholic Church has the right to enforce their values regarding contraceptives on the rest of the American public.
The fact is, the government should not exist to impose the moral/religious values of one set of people (heteros who want to "preserve the institution of marriage") on another (gays and lesbians). Frankly, the state shouldn't even perceive the concept of a marriage as a religious institution, as that assumes that there is only one definition of "marriage" which is defined by a certain religion or religions which are chosen by the state. The state's roll in marriage should simply be to sanction a contract between two individuals which grants the certain additional privileges (tax breaks, etc).
Or is it simply affordable because Canada doesn't have an FDA? The same drugs in Canada are cheaper than in the USA.
Ummm.... the idea that we "don't have an FDA" (though, we do have equivalent organizations of different names, I do believe) really has nothing to do with the lower prices of drugs. They're cheaper because we recognize that drug companies sell at inflated prices, and thus have caps on pharmaceutical costs.
There are still areas of the USA (way far away from the inner city) where people still don't lock their doors. Also, Canada's population density is a [fraction] of that of the US.
First of all: of course places far from the city can be like that! The point is, you can go to places like Toronto (urban centre; high population density) and people still don't lock their doors nearly as much as in the States. And population density is really irrelevent: most Canadians live clustered in areas (see: Southern Ontario) and thus the overall population density, which includes the vastly underpopulated north, does not really reflect the population density of more settled areas. Southern Ontario's population density is comparable to that of the States, I am sure.
How about this question, because I'm generally ignorant of these things
And that about covers it. Honestly, if you admit you don't really know what you're talking about, it becomes pointless to discuss anything.It has nothing to do with sovereignty, and everything to do with international law. You know, that thing ALL countries that sign up to are bound by. That thing the US violated by resuming conflicts without either UN approval (resumption of hostilities by the UN side under the UN mandate requires security council approval, if you aren't attacked first) or being attacked first (it's legal to declare war if you are attacked first - and no, 9/11 wasn't done by the nation of Iraq, so no dice there).
"Thanks!", indeed.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Whats wrong with this picture? The united states is getting away with being a bully. But hey... your free arent you. See you in jail from the patriot act. And i'll be laughing all the way to the Employment Insurace office... in toronto! And if i get hit by a car, i'll still be smiling. cause i dont have to pay.
Tragek
Here's some history for you. Don't piss us Canadians off, or we'll burn your White House down.
Again.
Had you considered that Canadians just make better soldiers?
{duck}
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.