Slashdot Mirror
End of Online Anonymity in Canada?
boochy writes "Are we close to losing our anonymity online in Canada? As Angela Pacienza writes in a National Post article; "The record industry's attempts to sue people who share music online threaten to change the widely held expectation that everyone's anonymous when surfing the Internet, lawyers representing the public interest argued Monday."
This is a very interesting article that shows how much the lawyers representing the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic are trying their best to protect our privacy online."
You filthy Americans lose more freedoms every day and you wi....er....wait.....
Key word is "attempts." Each time they've tried the ISPs have told them to hit the bricks. YAWN. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
What? End of my anonymity? But I just paid $199 for my computer to stop broadcasting an ip address!
Don't no about hour anonymity, but we shore seem to be loosing hour ability to use the write words when we right.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
If someone believes they are completely anonymous while simply surfing around, they should be dense enough to think a lawsuit is just some legally mandated article of clothing.
Karma: Terrible
Do ordinary Joe Public people really believe they are anonymous when browsing the web? I would have thought that most people would have the sense to realise that when they are browsing the web from home, they will be tracable through their contract with thier ISP.
And as I'm Canadian, you'll never who I am to lower my karma! Hahahahah!
They're letting anonymous Canadians loose? RUN TO THE HILLS!! "But they're coming from the hills" Run AWAY from the hills! If you see a hill, run in the other direction!
Loosing?! Oh..."losing"...
No. We're not losing our anonymity. We never had it. Your email shows up on mail servers everywhere. Your IP is logged. You can be found.
There's a big difference between actual anonymity and perceived anonymity. The public thinks they're anonymous. The realization that they are not (through education or through lawsuits of these sorts) will lead to increased awareness and eventually smarter users.
Maybe I'm just optimistic.
How does this fit in with Canada's new privacy law that came into effect January 1st? Is this a legitimate business purpose?
Trolling is a art,
Clicky Clicky!!
How can it be "the end of online anonymity" if we've never had it in the first place?
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Yet again, Canada is just a couple years behind the USA. We already know you can't be nameless online anymore...
The canadian privacy laws have been passed to protect the citizens who, actually, vote for the government, so the government better listen to the people.
But again, the National Post is just a wet-dream from those rich people who are trying to eliminate the State so they can profit off the unrich people unhindered.
No, but we may be loosing out literacy
does this mean that canadians are now browsing /. with a -1 mod to a/c posts?
and if you see me strut, remind me of what left this outlaw torn...
In order to pay out a collected 'tax' they'll need to know how to divide it up, and to do that, they'll need to know who has what...
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Who ever told you that you were "anonymous" on the Internet?
I actually see 2 different issues here. First, should a person's activities online be traceable? Yes - after due process. We all would love to see spammers caught, etc. However, the other issue is the record company's suit. Should they be suing? Well, the fact that I think they are greedy, stupid, outdated fools doesn't change the fact that they currently have a legal right to do so, I suppose. But here's to hoping they get some reasonable limits set on them soon (say real due process, reasonable limits to how much they can sue for, etc).
What if I do not care about not being anonymousness ? :
I just don't want people to abuse my privacy, it's not the same thing
I agree to be known when I visit a "public" (insert definition here) web site provided it doesn't exchange data about me with other "public" web sites.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The author of this post proves it
Rule by corporate law(yer) is quite a scary concept. The reward for a successful prosecution becomes to easy to attain.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
We've all known, especially those of us with static IPs, that the Internet isn't so anonymous. Anyone who cares badly enough could probably find out who was hiding behind that IP address to download Britney's latest single (ooh! the scandal!). But the article isn't talking about /.ers; it's about Average Joe Canadian. Hey, since it's frickin' cold in Canada, does anybody want to go into business selling tinfoil-lined ski hats?
"Den som vover mister Fodfaeste et Oieblik; den som ikke vover mister Livet." -Soren Kierkegaard
Over 90% of blocked activity at my firewall is probes from kazaa, gnutella etc looking for the last computer with that IP, who was filesharing. Last thing I want is to get hassled for running software I dont have installed because I got some other guy's IP. (the other 10% was mostly nimda and code red - yay microsuck)
Dude you keep linking your site as if it is relevent. Other posters have pointed out the same. Mods - get a clue about this Karma Whore please.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Having anonyimity in Canada is like wearing a ski mask to an adult theater; It's great that nobody knows who you are, but nobody's really looking at you because they're all staring at the guys on horses...
well, it's nothing one behind the ear wouldn't cure
* Health care system is better as long as you don't mind waiting a few months to a year for your surgeries
* Taxes and levies out the yin-yang - if the oppurtunity comes to move to the US, i am out of here. It's not like I make $100K a year or anything either (less than half of that actually) I can do much more with my money in the US, even after paying for health insurance.
* special interest groups clog the system with their constant bitching and moaning about stupid crap (note: I believe this phenomena is the result of a superior society in some ways - because people don't have so much that matters to worry about they ahve to go and make shit up to worry about)
Both nations have pluses and minuses I believe the US is slightly more free and you have slightly better opportunities, provided that you can get a health insurance plan.
wha..? the US is spreading its tentacles to my beloved Canada?!
o ry/CTVNew s/1079293949072_14/?hub=Canada
That's it then, I'm moving to Turks and Caicos!
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/st
-
that looked to the topic and read:
.
"End of Online anomalies in Canada?"
so sad, I though they just unpluged the cable over there and then realized we were talking about losing (whatever this means) Anonymity
The Toronto Star reports: Howard Knopf, an intellectual property lawyer speaking as an intervener said providers should not be ordered to disclose the names because there is no evidence to suggest they are breaking any Canadian laws..
Sigs are bad for your health.
...when they started making your computer broadcast its internet address to the world. Until they fix this, we will never have privacy.
This is the exact defense one individual I know used when he was accused of breaking into a rural school's computer system about ten years ago. Though this was a criminal charge (and the burden of proof substantially higher), he was easily acquitted because the prosecutor couldn't show that it was him specifically who was breaking into the computer systems.
In like manner, however, I suspect that the house of cards of the recording industry will just as easily fall apart with these civil suits in Canada. If I stupidly misconfigured my wireless or wired router to allow people to essentially walk in, they could easily breach computer security and use my computer to download all manner of goodies. Given what the AVERAGE computer user is (and you all know what the average user is like...), this is more than a plausible defense.
Well that's old news. This idiot has been doing this for a week or so now. And everytime he promotes his site writing meaningless drivel... HE GETS MODDED UP TO +5 INTERESTING!
I think a lot of people are using slashdot just to promote their websites. And slashdot mod system is letting it happen.
Anyway, I have stopped pointing this out. The mods never listen.
maybe scott mcneiley can visit the court on behalf of the *IAA. with comments like "privicy is dead", who needs the patriot act, and v2 and taliban! canada welcome to the 20th century
now give us out car plants back, wood moulding plants, cabnet plants.....
-signed your lovly southern neighbors
The record industry's attempts to sue people who share music online threaten to change the widely held expectation that everyone's anonymous when surfing the Internet
/sarcasm
Everyone was anonymous while they were on the internet, until now? Jeez, Canada must have a waaaay better internet than this hunk of junk we got in the states.
If your subscribed to one of Western Canada's largest Internet service subscribers (Telus), you've already lost your 'anonymous' status. Telus sells your info to marketing companies - you got to opt out manually by calling thier privacy line.
Don't worry, it's just your mailing address, name, and your phone number. Telus swears they're not selling your email address but I wonder how much longer before they start to use that as a cashable asset?
At issue here is whether or not the music industry is allowed to snoop on your home PC's. Where's the search warrant I ask?
Point 1. Canada's law on privacy (FOIP) may protect us from RIAA anyways. New rules and guidelines came in effect on January 1st. It basically allows us to operate with business without reprocussions of invasion of privacy.
Point 2. Canada is already collecting a tarrif on CD's sold in Canada to go towards musicians from sales lost from online music sharing(even though most have never seen a red cent). If I'm already paying tarrifs on CD's to protect the music industry, do I not have a legal right to copy and download music I want?
Point 3. CD's were suppose to promise cheaper albums when first introducts in the 80's. Cost of production of an LP vs a CD is around 95% less. Where's my savings RIAA? Most albums still go for $15-20 dollars. Where's my promised $7 new albums?
Last Point. The last time the music industry shut down Napster, music sales plumeted 10%. Does file and music sharing spawn interest in CD's? What about albums or CD's I can no longer buy but the music is available P2P? Doesn't RIAA realise that they should be embracing this as an opportunity to change how music is sold? I mean, it's not like artists make money on albums anyways. Who's really behind this push?
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
If there's no anonymity, then who am I? How true is it that there is no anonymity?
The bigger point is that the public does believe that when they are using P2P they are anonymous. That's why they pick pseudonyms and that's why they may do things online that they wouldn't do in the real world - ie. engaging in free speech regarding politics, religion, sex etc. They feel "safe" doing so because it appears to be anonymous. As ISP's hold more information about us, we should be worried about how easily the recording industry or anyone else for that matter can get access to it.
The ISPs in this case have fought (at least Shaw and Telus). However, the other three (Bell, Rogers, Videotron) have hardly fought. They basically will hand over the identities once there is a court order. Their only interest is in the inconvenience that it causes them to have to deal with it and the money it costs them.
This case is actually a perfect example of why there should be a high threshold before ISPs are ordered to hand over names. There was no evidence in this case that linked the IP addresses to the KaZaA usernames and there was no evidence that anyone ever listened to the files that were downloaded. Therefore, there is a risk that the wrong people will be identified and that even if they are the right people, they didn't do anything wrong. Further, the best that the ISPs can do is to identify the account holder, not the actual user (who might be a neighbour who tapped into a wireless router).
Because the recording industry is also worried about the destruction of evidence, another problem is that once they have the account holders' names, they will go to court for an order (without notice to the account holder) which allows them to go in an seize the account holders' computers in order to preserve evidence. How happy would that make you?
The ISPs are scared of all this because they will wear the mess at the end of the day even if the problem was really with the recording industry's investigation.
These actions obviously have very serious ramifications for privacy, anonymity and other rights. Revealing the identities will have effects for the targeted people as well as the broader public because people may just stop going online if they think that what they do may be exposed (in a very public forum) at any time.
On top of all this, downloading music is legal in Canada and there is also a big question as to whether uploading is illegal at all.
Canada has a better health care system.
If you had actually lived in Canada instead of just visited you'd know that this is inaccurate. The Health care system in Canada is deplorable. The best Canadian doctors leave the country for better wages.
For people that have never experienced socialized medicine, it's like any other government service. Imagine those ladies at the DMV providing health care.
I have a friend that developed MS while living in Canada. He was told that it would be 6 months before he could see a specialist. He moved back to the US and got treatment immediately.
Canada is a great country. You don't need to detract from the US to make yourself feel better about your own country. That's the problem with Canadian patriotism. The only source of national pride is derived from deriding their neighbors to the south..
Its not that they don't listen, people can disagree what is good and what isn't.
Its the fact that they didn't even click on the link. How good can their judgement be?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Lawyers and government types just don't get it. The technological Pandora's Box has been opened, and legislation isn't going to help. Anonymity on the Internet? Try looking into the FreeNet project. It's so anonymous that lawmakers practically don't know it exists. And if they did, they still couldn't do anything about it.
Its a mute point.
Key word is "attempts." Each time they've tried the ISPs have told them to hit the bricks. YAWN. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
"Hey buddy. Better move - there's a truck coming."
"Trucks? Trucks never come down this road."
"Nevertheless, here comes the truck."
"I doubt it. Nothing to see here."
"But..."
"Lalalalalalalalalalalalalala-" *WHAM*
-Canada has a better health care system.
How the hell is this insightful. This guy spews a bunch of statements with no facts to back up his claims. I've spent more than 3 years in Canada and this guy doesn't have a clue. Wealthy Canadians go to the US to see specialists to avoid the waiting lists that exist in Canada.
I just checked, my IP is 192.168.0.2 - I will post anonymously so that that I cannot be traced back.
Tell you what, seriously, how about we swap citizenships?
You might be right about those things but we're quickly adopting just about all the same cultural trends as the US. Our cities are going through the same transitions american ones did in the 70s/80s- sprawl and infiltration of the US big box stores. At the other end, thanks to satellite, everyone watches US TV which is definitely contributing to a cultural debasement. Even our long standing public broadcaster (CBC) is becoming more slick and shock-based. The legal system will probably follow suit. There really is no insulation between the countries anymore.
- A majority of the youth there drink heavily by the age of 16, in fact it seems socially ingrained.
- and in most cases hate, exists between the varying states[sic]
- even in casual discussions it is alarming how racist they are towards African Americans.
Kid, I've lived all over Canada for the past 25 years, and I have absolutely no clue what you're talking about regarding the above three points.
Nice troll.
The internet was never truly anonymous... and expecting that you can do something illegal and remain anonymous is absurd.
The internet has a good degree of casual anonymity, just as people walking on a city street do... you don't know who everyone is.
You can surf around on sites or go to chat rooms and expect that people generally can't find out who you are.. but you know damn well if the force of law is brought down they COULD find out who you are.
A majority of the youth there drink heavily by the age of 16, in fact it seems socially ingrained.
I'd like to hear where you got that particular gem. It's just wrong.
They don't have any notable icons of social pride other than a sport, hockey.
Keep going. We'll see if you can put your foot even farther into your mouth.
An indifferent feeling, and in most cases hate, exists between the varying states (or whatever they are called in Canada), particularly toward the mostly French ones.
Oh yeah. I wander around all day hating those darned french people. Oh wait... no I don't. Neither do most other Canadians. The separatist movement never recovered after the loss of the referendum what... a decade ago? And now for most Canadians it's business as usual.
I speak with Canadians concerning business matters at least twice a month, and even in casual discussions it is alarming how racist they are towards African Americans.
You're clearly lying. If you spoke to Canadians twice a month on business, you would at least know the word "Province". You'd also know that racism towards African Americans is pretty damn limited. I can't claim Canada to be free of prejudice - collectively we aren't - but most is directed at other groups. Not that that's any better - I'm just saying you haven't a clue.
It is very easy easy to run a national healthcare system when you have a small economy, almost no military spending, and a tiny population.
Is it now? Try running a economy dispersed over the second largest country in the world, geographically speaking, on the tax base made available by that "tiny population".
I'll wager you have no idea how large our economy is.
Keep wardriving!
Yeah, too bad it's a _spelling_ mistake, not a grammar one.
What people often forget is that social networking can corroborate what IP tracing already has shown.
For example, you post some comment on a web board. Your IP is logged. The Board moderator does a simple trace, and finds out within seconds what kind of connection you have, even if you signed off. Is it from an AOL modem pool? A DSL account? Those sorts of things are easy to find out.
So some hacker-wannabe uses some online modem pool with DHCP, so he's truly anonymous, no? No. See, the most COMMON mistake is that people who do these sorts of things are people you already know. Ex-boyfriend, some guy you pissed off at an anime con, and so on. If you work backwards by assuming that, ("Hmmm... call traced from DSL connection in Camden, NJ... we have a guy who we booted off the board last year from Camden...") and then compare it to other connections he makes, Usenet postings, referral logs, and so on ... you can stack up a HUGE amount of evidence, even if it all might be declared "amazingly circumstantial" in court. Now it's up to the people who he's pissed off how much time and effort they want to put into getting back at the jerk.
I have also found that people who are jerks online are REALLY easy to trace, because if they were truly paranoid and intelligent, they'd keep a low profile and say nothing, never start flame wars, etc... Those who are good at computing, for instance, rarely get involved in computer flame wars because they know they don't have anything to prove. "Let this guy say Macs suck," they'll say. "Their loss!" A guy who is insecure about how little he knows about his FreeBSD box will often try and cover this up with being an ass, patronzining newbies, and so on. That's when the people in the IRC chat room trace his IP, hack his FreeBSD "firewall," find out he hasn't logged in since last year and wouldn't know a hacked box looks like if he saw one, and do whatever they think is appropriate. :)
Of course, I have always felt that the really good hackers are like black holes: we know scientifically they exist, and we see evidence of them, but due to their very nature, you can't actually SEE one in action.
That is, you get instant treatment in the States if you are rich..
"That's the problem with Canadian patriotism. The only source of national pride is derived from deriding their neighbors to the south..
"
I would love to attack you for this statement, although I agree with much of everything else you said. This is blatantly racist, and I hope you see this for what it is. Our sense of patriotism is devrived from us beating the USA _AND_ Russia in Hockey.
Mod +5 Drunk
Point 1 FOIP only regulates government bodies. You're thinking of the Personal Information Protection Act or PIPA.
Point 2 No. The legislation is very specifically worded. You are only exempted from infringement when you make copies for yourself. Any kind of uploading would be considered infringement. The Copyright Board of Canada agrees with this interpretation. The tariff was never designed to address file-sharing. In addition, file-sharing does not require you to buy blank CDs.
Point 3 The Record Industry should die a horrible, horrible death.
Point 4 Music recroding execs are primarily interested in ways they can sell music online, while maintaining control over the end product, and without diminishing their revenue. To us, it may be a sort of holy grail, but it won't be implemented in a way that benefits us, the consumer, all that much. At least, that's what seems to be happening so far.
I don't even get why the Recording Industry is trying to sue us Canucks.
Did everyone just forget about the Hub-Bub where all blank media got a special tax added on to the price because naughty people were using it to pirate music?
I've been paying this god-damn "pirate" tax for YEARS now. Doesn't *PAYING*FOR*IT* make these claims of IP Theft kind of moot?
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
Point 1 redux Also, the federal privacy act, PIPEDA. But since you said "FOIP", I just assumed you were Albertan and so I only mentioned the provincial act, PIPA.
It used to be (around 10 years ago) that there was something called the "internet" that was a wild frontier where something called the "world wide web" lived and individuals and businesses could meet with each other freely and anonymously.
We need to understand that the future has changed. There may indeed still be a free internet and free, standards based protocols like HTML and HTTP, but the captive experience delivered by proprietary browsers, ISPs, and asymmetric bandwidth is not that experience. It is, increasingly, a captive experice like AOL or CompuServe.
Of *course* a captive experience needs authentication and sign in by customers, er, I mean users. Why else would anyone pay good money unless the content were decent, the protections and security all in place?
Barbed wire? There is no fence--it melts in your mind. Just loose your illusion that when you dial in to an ISP, fire up your browser, and surf the wild web, that you are somehow more 'leet than an AOL newbie cash cow.
If you want freedom, don't pay for it. Build it yourself. The internet, the IP protocol, and real web are still there, if you don't mistake them for something they are not.
*The health care problems are grossly over-reported by those seeking to undermine the system. As someone who's wife is currently undergoing treatment for cancer, I can tell you we had no problems with waiting.
*Good luck when you move to the States and find that the money you save on taxes is going into the increased cost of your medical benefits package, which will be pulled out from under you the moment anything actually goes wrong with you.
*Wow, I had no idea that the US was free from special interest groups. What a free and tolerant society they must have there.
well, let's look at the blank cd levy in canada shall we? the tax is distributed to artists and labels by socan (society of canadian artists, musicians and producers... how they got "socan" out of that i don't know). it's distributed based on sales. ie big selling artists get a bigger chunk of the taxes.
now, i'm in a band. we're producing a record that will be released by a local label. it's almost certain that we're going to lose money on this whole venture but, hey, it's a labour of love. the cd's that we're using are subject to the levy.
what does this mean? it means my band will lose money making our cd but avril levigne will make a profit from it through the levy.
whew.
2 1337 4 u!
Point 2.
The question isn't whether or not you can download music you want, its whether or not you can upload music you want. You are only legally permitted to share an original, licensed media. In the case of CD's, you are allowed only to share the original CD. You are not, however, to share copies of the original CD.
Point 3.
According to http://www.oia.ucalgary.ca/cpi/tables/Canada.pdf , you're looking at paying about 1.63 times the nominal price of a CD than you paid in 1985. That $20 CD in 1985 would cost you $32.60 now, instead it costs $15-$20, or roughly 1/2 what it did then.
Last Point.
The last time the music industry shut down napster, there were other economic forces at work which contribute to the drop in music sales.
Don't get me wrong, I think there are better ways for the RIAA and equivalent organizations to earn more money.
It's a grammar mistake, not a spelling one. Perhaps we ought to consult a dictionary to see that loosing is a perfectly acceptable English word. Yeah, too bad you don't know wtf you're talking about.
Thanks kindly.
Why would Telus do that? I doubt the amount Telus could get for those addresses would be enough to compensate for the extra load on the Telus mail servers and pipes.
Who cares? as far as I'm concerned, they're all guilty anyway.
Sure we have the levy/tax/whatever. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't pay again. And again, and again and again. We're Canadian after all...if we aren't setting the record for the highest-taxed people on the planet, we just aren't trying hard enough!
On the upside, the moron responsible for the tax/levy/whatever has recently been turfed from the gov't. Good riddance, Shiela Copps!
You're incredibly wrong on just about all points. I have mod points right now and couldn't decide whether to mod you down, or reply. Since by the time I decided, you'd already been modded into oblivion, I guess I'll just add insult to injury and reply to your wildly inaccurate and ignorant ramblings.
Re: Health Care
Canada does have a problem with its health-care: the wait times. I'll grant you that in Canada, it generally takes longer to get non-life-threatening operations than it does in the US. But with a catch: in order to get this "expidited" service in the US, you have to be able to afford it. And not everyone can. So in the US, you have nice, fast service for the rich, and no service at all for everyone else. In Canada, EVERYONE gets the health care they need.
An interesting phenomena in Canada is that rich Canadians will come to the US for treatment, because even though they have to pay full price, they get it much more expidently, and higher quality.
The assumption that US healthcare is of higher quality is actually a myth. While it does cost more, and you can get it faster, it is not necessarily better. Canada has all the same drugs, treatments, and state-of-the-art equipment that the US does, with a few notable, exotic exceptions.
Secondary education also seems to be the same.
Oh no, it's definitely not. Canada's government directs much, much more funding (proportionally) towards post-secondary education than the US. The most expensive undergraduate university in Canada is still far, far cheaper than even the average tuition at private institutions in the US. When I graduated 5 years ago, my tuition was $3800 CDN/year, and that was the most expensive anywhere in the country (Acadia University). At the time, Harvard tuition was around $23,000 USD, IIRC.
In addition, the student loan system is more accessible in Canada.
I've spent time in the US, and strongly prefer Canada. While I concede that the US is very large, and attitudes obviously vary by region (just as they do in Canada), my experience with USAmericans was that they are very confrontational, conservative, closed-minded, and traditional about certain issues (gun control, gay marriage, war), and apathetic about other important issues (intellectual property laws, corporate lobbying of government to "buy" laws, DMCA, privacy issues in general).
Canada is far more progressive, socially. Our drinking age is lower (19 versus the US's 21), gay rights are far more advanced in Canada than in the US. Marijuana is de facto legal here (posession, at least - not trafficking or growing [yet]). Publication and media laws are more lax and liberal. Our freedoms and privacy have not been "bought" by powerful corporations nearly to the degree that they have in the US, although that's probably because we simply have far fewer corporations large enough to exert such pressure, by virtue of our smaller population.
Pollution is less in Canada. The violent crime rate is an order of magnitude lower, even when you consider the population difference. Our taxation rate is actually comparable to the US's, when you factor in things like health insurance, which you might not see come off your income tax bill, but you're paying anyway, giving you the illusion that you actually get to "take home" more of your salary than a Canadian. Sure, we may pay an extra $3000 more in income tax than a USAmerican making the same salary, but we're not paying $350/month for health insurance, either. Yes, I know the numbers don't add up. You're actually paying more for your health care than we are, because your government has been paid off by the pharmaceudical companies, and is allowed to gouge people for expensive medication. Canada has tougher regulations to keep medicine affordable, and thus decreasing our overall cost of health care.
OK, I'm done ranting for now.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
As for your third point, ever heard of inflation? A minimum wage earner in 1985 had to work for 4-5 hours to buy a $20 CD. It is now down to 2 hours (typical CD price of $16 at A&B Sound or Future Shop). In constant (1985) dollars, the current price of $16 is likely pretty close to $7.
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
This is where I like the fact that IANAL, for just being cynical gives me a nice idea...
I seem to remember that Canada (just like France and quite some other countries) have people pay a special TAX on Hard Drives/CDR*s/DVDR*s to "compensate" for the piracy that occurs anyway...
Well...You see it ? no ?
I pay a tax on my recording media because it is implied I WILL use it for piracy, even if I don't.... Having paid that tax, I think I can swear to god that I didn't pirate this music, I even paid the tax to have the right to do it...
Would be a shame to see all this tax money I pay go unreclaimed by not accessing all this music I actually paid a tax for....
and so on... Now mod me up and down till I puke, but somewhere in what I said there is a truth, a cynical one, but a truth nonetheless.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
You'll often hear groups like EFF talk about how their solution will help the less popular artists, but that's hogwash. Your band isn't ever going to see a cut of that socan tax, is it? It's all just going to go to the majors, right?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I thought that Canadian consumers paid extra tax on consumable such as CDR's, blank cassette tapes, etc to allow them to copy stuff?
Oh no, it's definitely not. Canada's government directs much, much more funding (proportionally) towards post-secondary education than the US. The most expensive undergraduate university in Canada is still far, far cheaper than even the average tuition at private institutions in the US. When I graduated 5 years ago, my tuition was $3800 CDN/year, and that was the most expensive anywhere in the country (Acadia University). At the time, Harvard tuition was around $23,000 USD, IIRC.
Nice apples to apples comparison. There are a number of state schools that are in the same range as your $3800 per year. State funded universities range from $700-$2000 per semester.
but we're not paying $350/month for health insurance, either
I seem to remember paying about $250 per month for Alberta Health to cover my family. That didn't include dental, vision, perscriptions so supplementary insurance was required. It averages out to be about the same.
You need to consider that maybe your opinion is forged by the Canadian propaganda.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog, but everybody knows you are Canadian.
Congratulations on the most pathetically disingenuous kneejerk statement that I have read at Slashdot all week. Last time I checked money levied from individuals and supplied to corporations = pure capitalism, not socialism. Dimwit.
Forcefully taking money for a service that I did not require and may never use is certainly not capitalism. What would you call forcefully taking money from everyone just to support the actions of certain people?
By the way, notice how I managed to write the above without any argumentum ad hominem?
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
Wrong. Government subsidiation of corporations is pure PROTECTIONISM, which is most definately not capitalism.
Nice apples to apples comparison. There are a number of state schools that are in the same range as your $3800 per year. State funded universities range from $700-$2000 per semester.
I'm not talking about a state/provincial school. I'm talking about a private institution. And not just any private institution - the most expensive one anywhere in Canada. At the time, Acadia's tuition was the highest anywhere in Canada, of ANY undergraduate university, public or private. I'm saying that it was impossible to find a school in Canada where it was more expensive to get an undergrad degree than Acadia. And it cost $3800 per year.
I'm comparing Canada's most expensive private institution with the USA's average tuition for private institutions. And Canada is obviously far, far more accessible.
I seem to remember paying about $250 per month for Alberta Health to cover my family.
Are you a Canadian citizen? Were you perhaps working here on a work visa? Obviously, immigrants don't get automatic and complete access to our health care system, but taxpaying Canadian citizens don't have to pay anything for health care. Dental and vision is a different story - yes, you have to pay for that. This is, however, usually covered by your employer, if you have one. Otherwise, sure, it's a few bucks a month, but nowhere near the $250 you cited.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
There's such a thing as being "anonymous enough" :P
That's State Capitalism, as opposed to laissez faire capitalism (which, like true communism as opposed to State Communism, has never existed anywhere on a large scale). Taking from the many to give to the few is certainly not socialism.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
About the most you can do is match a particular IP address at a particular time to one particular ISP, and in turn a subscriber of that ISP. To take action against that subscriber requires the cooperation of the ISP, of course, but if the person on that IP was doing something that violated the ISP's terms of service (and running publically accessable services such as a web server or file sharing software which might cause your upstream traffic to be notably larger than it otherwise would are often such a violation for domestic accounts, at least), then the ISP's gonna be interested in cooperating anyways.
Actually, even IP addresses can be forged under certain circumstances, but most of the people that might otherwise want to fileshare almost certainly don't know what's all involved in making that happen.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's not all based on sales. It's also based on radio play and a couple other factors. If the band in the grandparent post registered their songs with SOCAN, they'll probably receive a cheque for about 50 cents or so.
He may be right. I can't state he is but some provinces charge a monthly fee for medicare instead of building into the tax rates. The rate is the same per person for every family memeber regardless of income. Based on the last rate I saw for Alberta his family has about 8 people in it. I wouldn't know if that is true or not obviously. Nor do I know if that's their current rate.
Six of one and a half dozen of the other...
Of course under our system nonpayment doesn't not result in a refusal of service. You need it, you get it.
Has existed in various forms throughout history. Anarcho-capitalist Iceland, for instance.
Ditto for health care... also determined provincially. One by one, provinces are moving to privatization of health care. Many Canadians have already said goodbye to their so-called "wonderful" social healthcare system.
The social aspects of the education system here are also declining. The government is stopping the allocation of student grants and being more restrictive about the amount that a person will be allowed to owe.
But then if you actually spent some time actually living here, instead of just visiting, you'd know all this.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Some info on the Canadian laws:
http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml
I seem to remember paying about $250 per month for Alberta Health to cover my family. That didn't include dental, vision, perscriptions so supplementary insurance was required. It averages out to be about the same.
mmm.. When I left my employement in Alberta in 2002 (retired), The coverage that my employer was providing was transfered to me. It amounted to about 250$ per quarter. This is about the amount that one would save on taxes if one resided in another province. However I moved to Ontario since then and corevage is actually paid for via regular taxes (ie pension in my case) in this province.
If you are an immigrant or self employed I can see all provinces charging a premium, but I know it will be nowhere near what you stated.
"The avalanche has already started. It's too late for the pebbles to vote." - Kosh
see? up there? it says anonymous coward! you can't find meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Not sure where you are getting this information from. Telus hasn't sold any information on myself. I've yet to receive anything that could even possibly be from a third-party in relation to Telus.
Sounds like something a person devoted to Shaw would claim.
Don't laugh too hard because 80% of warez traffic I see flows back into Canada.
Patty: Somedays we don't let the line move at all.
Selma: Yeah, we call those WEEKdays.
Misordered letters in a word (AGIAN), surrounded by very good punctuation and no abbreviations, are examples of very fast typers, not slow ones. Spelling mistakes like that are usually caused by people's fingers hitting the keys in slightly the wrong order, as they're typing with all fingers.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Ironically, I think that we are both on the same side on the issue.
is certainly not capitalism.
Something that is not textbook "responsible capitalism for dummies" is not de facto socialism as your previous post insinuated. The particular levy issue is a case of aberrant capitalism wherein corporate consortium has exerted enough influence on government as to institutionalize the expropriation of wealth from individuals (by a government acting as an agent of the corporations) to enrich corporations whose dated business models are failing.
What would you call forcefully taking money from everyone just to support the actions of certain people?
Bush tax cuts.
By the way, notice how I managed to write the above without any argumentum ad hominem?
Your original post was a sly attempt to disparage a great country ad populus, an action to which this particular hominem takes serious umbrage.
Less it be misconstrued by those acquainted only with binary viewpoints: I am not anti-capitalist - I live and work in and benefit from the capitalist system. But there needs to be a balance. A sad fact of the human condition is that too much power in any one group's hands leads to their abuse of those with less power.
Sigs are bad for your health.
the cd's that we're using are subject to the levy.
Pardon me for saying so, but that sounds pretty dumb.
For anything besides a short run (less than 100 units) it's more expensive to use CD-Rs. Contact someone like MorphiusDisc and get a quote.
In any case, since you're selling the disks with audio on them, you don't need to pay the levy - you should be able to apply for a rebate (as well as apply to the copyright collecive to get your share of the levy.)
Seriously dude, I think you got some bad info from your label. The system isn't as bad as you seem to believe.
Looks like the editors can't tell the difference between flamebait and flame.
1) Sign up with Canadian ISP.
2) Have identity stolen online.
3) Sue Canada (for PROFIT!!!)
(and the beer isn't very good either)
Right is wrong when left is right.
how can that be modded flamebait? are you so ashamed fo the truth? how much health care do you really get if you're poor and have no insurance?
seriously, i would like to know how many people are offended by the parent post, and how many agree, and then see how many of those offended actaully have had experience with hospitals, and the health care system while not having sufficient insurance?
Point 2. Canada is already collecting a tarrif on CD's sold in Canada to go towards musicians from sales lost from online music sharing(even though most have never seen a red cent). If I'm already paying tarrifs on CD's to protect the music industry, do I not have a legal right to copy and download music I want?
The tariff collected in canada is to compensate artists for the LEGAL music distribution in canada. Ive said it before and ill say it again. Copying your friend's CD's and downloading songs from P2P networks is 100% LEGAL in canada.
So yes, you do have the legal right to copy and download any music you want.
You can borrow a friend's cd, copy it, and keep that copy. You can NOT make a copy of this for someone else. You can NOT ask him to copy you a cd since him doing this would be illegal. You must be the one making the copy. You also can NOT upload songs on a p2p network. This is also illegal.
Refer to an older post of mine for links to some references. Google will give you more.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
The particular levy issue is a case of aberrant capitalism wherein corporate consortium has exerted enough influence on government as to institutionalize the expropriation of wealth from individuals (by a government acting as an agent of the corporations) to enrich corporations whose dated business models are failing.
Corporations exerting too much influence over government, which by the way has no place in properly functioning capitalism, may have been responsible for the institution of the levy; however, there has been very little public outcry about it, and I fear this is due to the socialist mindset: why should each individual have to pay for what they use, when everyone could just pay for everything. Once people get used to this idea, what's one more levy/tax in a grossly overtaxed country. Ironically, or perhaps not so, the only entity that I have seen protesting this levy has been Future Shop, a large computer hardware and electronics retailer; obviously they have their own personal motives for opposing it, but it still depicts part of the self-correcting nature of capitalism.
Bush tax cuts.
Who said I thought Bush's tax cuts were a good idea? Just because I am not fond of one extreme does not mean I am any more fond of the other. I am no fan of Bush, although that is primarily due to his domestic policies, and not his foreign policies.
Your original post was a sly attempt to disparage a great country ad populus, an action to which this particular hominem takes serious umbrage.
It was no such thing; it was rather an attempt to disparage the failed economic system and political philosophy, which a large part of the citizens of my country seem to adore and take pride in. The first duty of any citizen is to criticise one's country; this duty is heightened by the fact that I grew up in a socialist republic on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.
Less it be misconstrued by those acquainted only with binary viewpoints: I am not anti-capitalist - I live and work in and benefit from the capitalist system. But there needs to be a balance. A sad fact of the human condition is that too much power in any one group's hands leads to their abuse of those with less power.
Hear, hear. I only wish more people realized this.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
I agree with most of your post...except:
You also can NOT upload songs on a p2p network. This is also illegal.
This is still under contention because of the same reasons you listed for who can make a copy. If i have files "shared" (i.e. publicly viewable), i am not "uploading" or distributing files, which is illegal. If somebody decides to download it, they are making their own copy, which is legal. They are making a copy from my single copy - i am not making a copy for them. It's a fine line, and is still being debated in Canada.
cheers!
Yes, even the p2p downloading beeing legal, I think the CRIA might have a case against that because normally you can only make a copy of the original...not a copy. Which a mp3 usually is (a copy)
:)
Ah well, let the courts decide...for now I will keep downloading all the mp3s i want
If only this applied to movies and software now!
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Ah, you don't run Linux on your PC either then. Welcome to the small club (among slashdotters, anyway).
Be the pimp.
In British Columbia you pay monthly or quarterly for MSP (Medical Services Plan, the provincial health care). I'm not sure of the amount at present, but you could look it up on the web if you cared to make a comparison (I believe it's less than $250/month - more like $250/quarter perhaps). The exception is if your earnings are low, in which case you pay a reduced rate, or none at all. I've paid $0 in years when my earnings were very low, such that I also didn't pay any income tax (below the minimum deduction, but the MSP limit is higher - you can earn more and still receive free coverage from the province).
As noted, you still receive care if you're not covered. But in the case of specialists or doctor's office visits, the doctor ends up eating that cost, because they have no MSP number to bill to. There's no excuse for anyone not to be covered, of course, since if they really can't pay, coverage is free. But it still happens, and it's not like there's a provincial system for recompensing health care professionals when it does.
That levy has annoyed the hell out of me for years. I play in several small bands, and produce demo CD's, and burn small lots for us to sell. So, basically when we make a CD and sell it at $8 CDN I make a few dollars to cover my expenses (Burners, mixer, mics, editing software) and my time (recording, mixing, editing, burning) and the band makes a couple dollars, and some artist, who we'll likely never see, except from a few thousand feet away at a crowded auditorium or stadium will receive a few cents, and some desk jockey will receive several cents for his glancing at a report, or scratching an unreadable signature. Simple solution, drop the levy, destroy the recording giants, and everyone become independant artists. Get paid if the people like you, and get a real job if you're not cut out for the industry.
I agree, and lucky for me I just got metamod on that post (I actually never would have seen it if it shown up in metamod).
Unlike some borderline mods that I'll let slide, that one deserved to get bitchslapped. And I did.
Flamebait my a..