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Anti-DMCA Petition in Canadian Parliament
Matthew Skala writes "Last month we heard that the Canadian government is rejecting some of the worst features of the DMCA (more analysis here), but with Heritage Minister Liza Frulla parroting the media-cartel lobby with a promise to "give the tools to companies and authors to sue" and persuade children that downloading music for free is morally wrong even though it's presently legal in Canada, the battle is far from won. Yesterday, Member of Parliament Peter Julian (Burnaby-New Westminster, NDP) introduced the first batch of signatures on Digital Copyright Canada's Petition for Users' Rights. This isn't just a Web click-through petition that politicians can freely ignore; more than a thousand real hardcopy signatures have already been collected from Canadian residents opposed to further expansion of copyright privileges, and the campaign is hoping for many more. Additional coverage on p2pnet.net."
If something's legal, it doesn't mean it's also moral and conversely, doing the morally right thing might not be legal at the time.
The owls are not what they seem
From the article:
Mabye she could start up a hip, happening new ad campaign like the SPA's Don't Copy that Floppy.
Mabye it will be just as effective, too.
Mabye I'm a Chinese jet pilot.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
The NDP isn't irrelevant. The current government has a minority of seats, so if all the opposition parties vote against a proposed piece of legislation, then it won't pass.
Isn't it about time that Slashdot gets a 'Canada' Topic Icon? We have a USA one.
I mean, how many YRO stories involve Canada doing something we wish was happening here? Don't we get more 'Canada' stories than, say, 'Transmeta' stories or 'Geeks in Space' stories?
I hope the American lobby tries to butt in to get Canada to make more severe copyright laws because speaking as a Canadian, nothing makes us more stubborn than when America tries to make us do something we haven't made up our minds on. End result, no additional copyright laws.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
> I find that morality seems to always infringe on a person's rights and freedoms.
I find also that my morals are always infringing on my own rights and freedoms. Which is weird, because they're my morals, so they're right, but also they're wrong.
> So you see, you can't simply force a set of moral upon an entire population.
Not simply. It takes a lot of weaponry and planning.
> Morality is a personal choice.
OK.
> If someone chooses not to be moral,
> well there's no way you're going to force them to have a sense of
> morality.
Wait. So morality exists, and people choose to be moral or immoral? If morality exists absolutely, then how can you force morality onto someone? They either choose to be moral, or not.
> Part of freedom is being free to choose
All of freedom is being free to choose. That's it.
> and in this case being free to choose what you think is moral and immoral.
So if I choose to have no sense of morality, then what have I chosen?
You're confusing me. Stop it.
We could all learn a lot more about each other if we got rid of these attitudes and spent a little time getting to know one another's countries.
Downloading commercial music without payment is not.
Actually, if by "downloading" you mean making a personal copy of someone else's commercial music, then you're wrong.
The Canadian Copyright Act specifically allows personal copies of music to be made. The U.S.A. has never had an equivalent exclusion in its copyright laws.