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Canadian Minister Promises to Fix Copyright Law

Posted by michael on from the doh dept.

Mashiki writes "In Canada, we can download Mp3's and their assorted goodness without too much of a hassle, recently the CRIA and their friends lost the court case. Well, it would appear that the new Federal Heritage Minister Helene Scherre, has spoken and those words were: 'As minister of Canadian Heritage, I will, as quickly as possible, make changes to our copyright law.'"

11 of 569 comments (clear)

  1. And this is why voting is important by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even for Canadians.

  2. Gee... by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder what she means by "Fix" when talking to the recording industry. I have a feeling that it would coincide perfectly with "break" to everyone else.

    The real criminals don't break laws; They write them.

  3. No power. by g-to-the-o-to-the-g · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is just one minister. Whether or not she can pass any bills is up for debate. The bottom line is that we pay levies now to download music, and the music industry shouldn't be able to make us pay levies and buy music. They can't screw us twice without someone noticing. Recently someone noticed too.

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    Hi there

  4. Re:CDR Tax by Barbarian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course it won't.

  5. Re:WTF???? by Barbarian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So in what world is putting a file that you do _NOT_ own the copyright on, and have not actually obtained permission from the copyright holder to copy for purposes beyond fair use, in a publicly shared folder for others to obtain _not_ a violation of the copyright act?

    In the same world where a library can place a photocopier in the same room as books without getting sued. In fact, the judge in this case made that analogy and cited as precedent a case several weeks ago where a law library had been sued.

  6. Re:CDR Tax by epiphani · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why exactly is this rated +4 Funny? In canada, we pay a levy (not a tax, theres a difference) on our blank media that goes towards those music industries whiners. If they plan on making Copyright law such that Downloading becomes illegal, then fuck me paying extra for the CDs that I use for lagitimate uses.

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  7. If you can't win in court by Gribflex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Buy off a minister to change the laws for you.

  8. Just proves that.. by dj245 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This just goes to prove that no matter where you go, the lobbiests own the polititians. It doesn't matter where you live or who you think you have control over. It doesn't even matter if your megaphone is really really loud. If a lobbiest organization has more money than your faction has voters, the lobbiest always wins. So what can you do? Buy a congressman. I say we all pitch in and buy a Wyoming senator. They're worth 1/100 of the senate, and the going rate on a senator is about $20,000, based on some of the stories that have been in the news lately of kickbacks senators send to companies who gave them really small amounts of money.

    Just think, our very own Senator! Cash value 1/100 of senate...

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    Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  9. Re:If you're in Canada (like me) reminder her... by Ubernurd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just an ammendment to clarify my views:

    While I support p2p, I think there are consequences that people should be aware of. The record companies will lose money as a result of slashing prices to compete. This will lead to them representing fewer acts and those will be only the ones that are safe bets (the heavily produced Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Enrique Iglesias, etc) and less of the risky (read: interesting) ones. Diversity in record stores will suffer as p2p flourishes. If you want an actual packaged CD of a band that is more intertesting than the aforementioned acts, you're eventually going to have to actually go out to their show and buy it from them yourself. I personally think that's a great thing. Supporting live music, giving more money to musicians and less to distributors is all good in my books. If you're a proponent of p2p filesharing as I am, don't later whine that there's nothing good in the stores.

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    Stack overflow: pid 352258, proc httpd, addr 0x11f7ffff0, pc 0x12000195c Segmentation fault (core dumped)
  10. Catch 22: Release 2.0 by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Copyright Goon: Your honor, we want the ISP to turn over the name of the user who has IP adress 14.34.23.29 because they are sharing "Our Song", which is our copyrighted material on the Internet.
    Judge: Okay, how do you know that a computer 14.34.23.29 is committing copyright infingement against your copyrighted material.
    Copyright Goon: They're offering our material up for sharing over the StealTheirMusic protocol for anybody to download.
    Judge: Okay, can you prove that anybody actually downloaded that material?
    Copyright Goon: Yes, because we downloaded "Our Song" from that server.
    Judge: Uhm... that's not an unauthorized copy being made if you downloaded your own song. You started the download, you authorized the copy being made.
    Copyright Goon: Uhm... okay. Can we search the guys computer to see if there's transfer logs that prove he transfered "Our Song" to somebody else?
    Judge: No. You've gotta show that there's been an infigement first. You can't go blindly fishing like that.
    Copyright Goon: Can you make the ISP let us get a trace on that IP's outbound traffic so we can look for a transfer?
    Judge: No. That's still fishing.
    Copyright Goon: But we're sure they're stealing "Our Song" out there. Our sales are down!
    Judge: Come back when you've got some proof...

  11. Re:Malcolm has the right idea by Kierthos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If we're talking about someone making just over minimum wage working in a music store, yeah, that's a real job. If we're talking about the sound technicians who do the grunt work in the production of the music, yeah, that's a real job.

    If we're talking about the corpulent assholes who sit at the top of the company, who actually make no music, who add nothing to the value of the CD, and who take the vast majority of the artist's record sale income, and yet whine about p2p (and the apparent loss of funds to such that makes them unable to purchase that ruby-encrusted crack pipe), then no, that's not a real job.

    Kierthos

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    Mr. Hu is not a ninja.