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Proposed Canadian Laws to Nix P2P Music Sharing

Posted by timothy on from the what-about-artists-who-want-you-to-download-for-free? dept.

limber writes "During this past weekend's Juno awards (a vapid Canadian music industry shindig) Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla brought up proposed new legislation that would make downloading music on the Internet without paying for it illegal. High (or low) lights of the legislation include: forcing 'ISPs to monitor individual customer Internet connections for suspicious activity,' and giving the music industry and songwriters 'the tools to sue' illegal downloaders. Frulla further noted she 'wanted to persuade children that downloading music for free is wrong.'

5 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. stoopid government by BortQ · · Score: 2, Informative
    The liberal government is going to fall pretty soon anyways. There's no way something as invasive as this would pass.

    Not to mention that there's already a fricken levy on CDs and other media to compensate artists for downloading.

    --

    A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
  2. Re:Music Levy Repel by Trepalium · · Score: 2, Informative

    hahaha. That's a good one.

    --
    I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
  3. Woohoo! by canwaf · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's great! This leglislation will die, because we're probably going to have an election soon.

  4. Re:Downloading to yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I agree. There's a similar thing in UK entertainment licensing at the moment: you need a licence for any public performance, which has been welcomed by "the entertainment industry", which has been extensively consulted.

    People who like to play music for fun rather than profit do not apparently exist, and so are not catered for.

  5. Re:Democracy by belmolis · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm well aware of the fact that Canada is a constitutional monarchy. There is no conflict between being a constitutional monarchy and being a democracy. Canada and most other constitutional monarchies are true democracies insofar as the monarch does not, and cannot without provoking a constitutional crisis, exert actual control. The Queen's actual powers are extremely limited. Beyond appointing the governor-general and the lieutenant-governors, she exercises power only in the very rare situations in which she refuses royal assent to legislation or where, no party having a clear majority, she decides who to ask to form the government. The queen does not, in practice, have the power to originate legislation or to act outside the framework of the law.

    Be very careful where and how you claim that the Queen holds no authority over Canada. That notion is quite probably seditious.

    Wrong. It is not sedition to make a correct statement, or even an incorrect statement, about the powers of the sovereign. Sedition requires the intent to change the government by force. This is not merely a general definition; it is the definition given in the Criminal Code of Canada.