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Canadian Law Profs Counter CRIA Propaganda
An anonymous reader writes "The Globe and Mail reports that Canadian law professors have countered the Canadian recording industry's misinformation campaign in a new 600-page book that is being made freely available under a creative commons license. Led by Professor Michael Geist, the book provides full coverage of the possibility of Canada adopting DMCA-like copyright laws." From the article: "The 19 copyright law professors, in a peer-reviewed discussion edited by Ottawa lawyer and Internet columnist Michael Geist, note that revisions to copyright law in the past were largely the result of negotiations among copyright stakeholders; today, however, the broader public is also demanding a seat at the table. 'The public's interest in copyright something inconceivable even a few years ago is the result of the remarkable confluence of computing power, the Internet, and a plethora of new software programs, all of which has not only enabled millions to create their own songs, movies, photos, art, and software but has also allowed them to efficiently distribute their creations electronically without the need for traditional distribution systems,' the book says."
That's the sound of CRIA getting PWNED. Thank goodness us Canucks still got the balls to stand up to big business.
Remember kids, no posting before you've read all 600 pages. =)
All rites reversed 2010
So it is more than never the time to go after your candidates and grill them on the subject. The more public, the better!
Do not count on the private TV networks to expose this to the public; aim the majority of your efforts towars the government owned (but not controlled) CBC.
Canada has it easy. Look at us in Australia, we accepted a free trade agreement with the US complete with the DMCA.
The easy part was getting the brain out, but the hard part was getting the brain out.
Could someone post the content of the book in a comment, the webpage seem's to have been slashdotted.
Some of their numbers don't fly with me... Most of my associates either subscribe to iTunes, RealRhapsody, or Yahoo! Music. The main reason is having to pay for an entire CD (IMHO, overpriced) to get one or two songs.
...just my opinion.
The primary motivation for me spending $7/month for Yahoo! Music is so that I get only the songs I like and can ignore the garbage that these artists had to develop as filler.
I'm also realistic enough to know that the majority are downloading music they've never paid for. Which brings up another question: If I bought a vinyl album 20 years ago, do I have the right to have those songs? I know the answer. I don't like it. I think if I paid $10.99 in 1985 for a Pink Floyd album I purchased a license to have those songs, no matter how I get them.
My ZooLoo
The absolute best way to engage the interest of the buying, voting public...
is a 600-page book
*THUD*
Of course, it would make a handy prop in court...
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
The author (or at least the summary :P ) hits the nail on the head about the music industry: People being able to distribute their audio or video art BY THEMSELVES, making the Recording Industry redundant, if not obsolete.
Catch TV tune with latest celebrity fad VS 600 page boring book.. CRIA will win this "fight" over and over and over.
If you want to get kids attenction it needs to be quick, easy and flashy. A 600 page book is none of these, where as the R/CIAA's adverts are all of them.
I like muppets.
Coral Cache link here.
Michael Geist is my hero.
Illegitimi non Carborundum.
..I purchased a license to have a copy of those songs, no matter how I get them.
what if you lose/spoil the CD? so you mean you could download those songs (illegally) because you had bought the license to have those songs, and not in the manner they were provided to you (ie on a CD)?
I'm also realistic enough to know that the majority are downloading music they've never paid for. Which brings up another question: If I bought a vinyl album 20 years ago, do I have the right to have those songs? I know the answer.
In Canada you have the right to copy those songs off the album into whatever form you like, for your own personal use. You probably also have that right in the US, but it's not explicitly in the law, and it hasn't been tested in court, as far as I know.
In Canada you also have the right to copy them from somewhere else (say your album is scratched, or whatever), again for your personal use. In the US you don't.
In fact, in Canada this applies to songs whether you bought the album or not. The CRIA is wrong when it talks about "illegal downloads". As long as you're downloading for your own use, it's not illegal.
As much as I love to bash Canada, this is worthy of applause. Can we borrow you to fight the RIAA when you're done?
I am Spartacus
Not yet, the book is divided up into per-section PDFs. It'll take a while to download them and zip them.
booklets, brochures, etc. handed to the public can be derived from this book. The point is that the book can now be used as a reference, a cornerstone needed to provide the facts (as opposed to opinions) about copyright.
Think of the book as "The Copyright Bible".
Here's the clinch.
Under fair use, yes. you have the right to the data. In any format you want. Copied in any way you want. Ect.
However, you may not have the right to attain newer, updated versions. This can include the improved quality found in CD. Further, I'm pretty sure something in the DMCA, somewhere, disallows you to get the data you legally own a copy of again. So although its allowed under Fair Use, it may have been shattered by the DMCA.
IANAL, but I've had to study IP law a bit. Take it with a grain of salt.
Code. Writing. Writing Code. Writing in general. What? They aren't -that- differnet.
Bender: "I'm not reading all that crap. Summarize it in one word!"
Leela: "Sabotage."
AC comments get piped to
Are there any parties in Canada who have outright said that they will not support such nonsense, and will actively fight for the rights of individual Canadian citizens?
My nephew said that you have a Green Party over there which may be more open to such ideas. What is their stance on this bill? The Liberals and Conservatives are known for their business ties and corruption. Would they actually stand against this very corporate-friendly bill? Is the NDP even relevant these days? Where do they stand?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Hell, I can't even find WinMX ..They mysteriously dissapeared off the face of the Internet about a week ago.
Under fair use, yes. you have the right to the data. In any format you want. Copied in any way you want. Ect.
Which part of fair use gives you this right? This is a serious question, please give details.
As a consumer, I reserve the right to time shift, place shift, playback device shift, media shift, play as often, and make as many backup copies as I deem necessary, of any content that I have purchased. I reserve the right to ignore, bypass or circumvent any mechanism, process or device that prevents or hinders such activities.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Nobody actually "owns" copyright or the copyrighted material itself. There are only copyright "holders" who have specific rights for a limited time, granted and enforced by the government. It's not a divine right, it's a contract between copyright holders and the public. The public agrees not to infringe for a length of time and to pay for the enforcement of the copyright, and in return the material becomes public domain when the copyright expires.
When Congress extends copyright terms on existing material they break this contract with the public. It's as if they decided to turn all 30-year mortgages into 60-year mortgages with the stroke of a pen. Nice if you're a bank, but not if you're the one who has been faithfully making payments for years and years. The Bono Act of 1998 not only extended copyright terms to 95 years, it also retroactively reimposed copyrights on old audio recordings. All recordings made prior to 1979 are now copyrighted until the year 2067. That includes every sound ever recorded, all the way back Edison's wax cylinders made in the 1890s. Isn't that great??!!
Are letters to politicians postage-free in Canada, as in some other nations? Could you realistically, assuming affording the paper was not a problem, mail a copy of this book to each and every parliamentarian?
Perhaps a group of students or professionals could get together and each print up a page or two of the book for each politician. And they could collect the pages together into a single book for each parliamentarian, spreading the printing cost amongst themselves.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I didn't intend to come across as saying 'can you do this for us,' rather I meant to say 'could you help us do it.' Assistance from a veteran in the field would help more than simply observing him and copying his actions. But thank you for being impulsive and caustic, I will try to be more specific in the future.
I am Spartacus
Canada is very lucky to have Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party. I was reading an interview with him the other day and he was asked about the music industry's reaction to unauthorized copying. He talked about his experience teaching at university, and how the textbook publishers were predicting their own doom at the hands of widespread photocopier usage. The current textboox photocopying policy? A student may make a copy of up to 10% or one chapter of their text, whichever is shorter. The result? Students get to copy what they need and the textbook publishers are more profitable than ever (and continue to get away with RIAA-esque price gouging).
He reasoned that the music sharing situation would be similar and he still opposes the anti-consumer solutions being supported by the Liberals and Conservatives (such as this DMCA workalike currently being forced through).
The problem? Most of Canada's new sources lean far to the right. The Toronto Star is one of the few papers in the country that will even attempt to give the NDP a fair shot. The Sun (widely read) frequently prints stories from the Canada Free Press, a self-labelled "conservative alternative." The result is that the public almost never hears about things like this DMCA bill, and when the spotlight is on people like Jack Layton, the stories (like his amazing efforts to get wind generators built) are extremely jaded (Canada Free Press describes him as a bird-murdering maniac).
The last mainstream article I read regarding music sharing was in The Sun. It described Kazaa as an "illegal service." I wrote to the editor and explained that a) Kazaa itself is not illegal in Canada and b) downloading music from P2P networks is not illegal in Canada. I received a curt letter stating that perhaps I would probably prefer to share my opinion in their moderated forums. I replied with information backing up these facts but nothing ever came back (and there was certainly no retraction).
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
You gotta FIGHT ........
For your RIGHT
To COOOOOOPY
Actually, I think that it goes something like this under canadian law:
If I burn a copy of a cd I own, and give you the copy, I'm breaking the law.
If I give you a cd I own, you burn a copy, and return the original, no law is broken.
Applying this to the digital world, downloading songs/media/whatever for personal use should be legal, the problem is that most P2P apps also *upload* from your computer, which is in violation of copyright laws (you don't have distribution rights for the media).
Moral of the story? Canadians should use newsgroups for their "illegal" downloads.
Canada, I salute you. You've been a shining light of freedom. Alas, I fear that your government has been watching the self-serving buffoons running the U.S.A. for too long, and will happily trade both their ethics and your freedom for a bit of lucre. If they prove be be built of better stuff, I'll be applying for work over the border. Anyone want to adopt a good Oracle DBA/Linux Sysadmin?
Indeed, someone should collect all the chapters together and put them on the various p2p networks: BitTorrent, ed2k, whatever else. I'm actually surprised it hasn't been done by the authors/editors/publishers themselves, though. It would have been a brilliant example.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
I like to think of it at cry-ah as cry a lot. Because they do cry a lot, costs this, expenses that - artists that suck (errr did I just say that out loud?).
They loby the government for the tax that we pay on burnable media, then they get it they complain about downloading.
Canada will be going into elections within the nest 6-9 months. [emphasis mine]
Does this mean that Canadian politicians are an avian species?
If so, wouldn't they migrate south in the winter and inflict more big media-funded legislation on the United States? Not that Congress needs any help.
...on the other hand, if it's American politicians flying north in 6 months, you guys are screwed. @.~
A "fair use" is one that does not infringe on the copyright holder's ability to exploit their work for gain.
Whether a use is "fair" depends on a number of factors: 1) does the user profit from it at the expense of the copyright holder, 2) is the use educational, 3) is the use a criticism of the work, 4) does the use involve the whole work, or a small portion of it?
An example of a "fair use", is whistling a song you heard on the radio, or playing a purchased tape or CD of it in your car. While others may hear the tune, they are not likely to pay the copyright holder to have someone walk or drive by them just to hear the song.
Now, if you hold a public performance, it gets a bit more dicey: you're competing with authorized performances (since the performance is the production of a copy, however ephemeral or transient). Playing CDs at a party at your house to a small crowd of people is O.K.
In either case, charging admission makes it not O.K., particularly if the reproduction is what induces people to pay the admission price.
The areas that are grey are things like a barber playing a radio in his shop while tending to customers. That's likely O.K. (since people don't go into barber shops to listen to music), but playing the radio to relieve the boredom of customers waiting their turn is probably not O.K.: you're using the work to make your business more attractive than your competition who provides no distractions for waiting customers. Still, it's iffy enough to not be a good idea even in the former case: whether intentional or not, waiting customers have their boredom relieved by the radio they can hear.
In the case of downloading the CD equivalent of an old, scratched album, you have, clearly you're getting something you didn't have before: better quality, so its likely not O.K. Downloading the CD equivalent of the CD you paid for that got scratched beyond playability would seam O.K.: you're not getting anything you didn't already pay for. A poor MP3 dowloaded to replace the scratchy album could be argued to be fine on the basis of comparable quality as well. But, of course, the copyright holder would argue strongly against this position. Do you want to test it in the courts?
You could've hired me.
You always have the right to have those (and any other) songs in Canada. For your own use and as long as you don't redistribute them.
All Canadians have already been tried, found guilty and sentenced for copyright infringement. We've been paying a levy on blank CDs and tapes for years, thanks to CRIA. They've also tried to impose their levy scheme on ISP fees and DVDs and more, but thankfully failed. Anyway, CRIA drew first blood, but we have the right to download as much as we want.
Their latest antics just prove they want to have their cake and eat ours too. Screw em.
http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml
(pdf) http://www.cpcc.ca/english/pdf/interimDecision2005 .pdf
IANAL - that being said, I believe the logic as far as having uploads going on while you are legally downloading material is okay in Canada. The logic being that some|most P2Ps require (or their users do) you to also share what you are downloading. As such, you are not breaking the law as your PRIMARY intent is to download.
Can someone translate it into a picture book for us?
The human race is artificial intelligence created using object orientated programming.
Doesn't the CRIA submit that lying PR to the Canadian government? Isn't it a crime to lie to the Canadian government? How about some decent Canadian lawyers filing some complaints with the government about these lying CRIA criminals? From what I gathered living in Canada, some fines and sentences for that kind of disgraceful conduct would at least inhibit some percentage of the weasels. The rest of them will have to be rounded up individually and skinned alive.
--
make install -not war
Hey, if I were being taken to court by the RIAA, I'd swear the oath with my hand on this book.
Well, "cria" is Spanish for "baby". Baby llamas and alpacas are simply called "cria". Take that analogy for what it is...
No need for a torrent. Here are all the PDFs concatenated together in a easy to download 4,289,621 bytes file.
I am curious: How much of the general public cares very much? A lot of people are quite willing to copy or decrypt things illegally if that's what it takes--presumably it doesn't matter too much to them whether something is legal or not. It matters to me because if it's illegal, then I can't in conscience do it (unless it's a law that it is immoral to obey, or maybe a case of public civil disobedience against an immoral law, etc.) But many people don't mind engaging in illegal copying, illegal circumvention of access controls, etc.
Yeah well in PA you can still hunt indians from a covered wagon with a bow and arrow but I doubt you would get away with it.. there are many things on the books that "technically" you can not do (read a book outload etc), but please give me a break.
when in doubt press enter and we'll figure it out later..
Don't forget the bullshit over the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow) cases discovered in Canada. Shortly before the borders were to open to Canadian beef, an association of U.S. ranchers brought a lawsuit to prevent it from happening. Why? They're raking in the profits, and don't want it to stop. Oh, wait, the official line is something like, "protecting the public safety". Pure protectionism is all it really is.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
So are lots of people recording from these play whatever you want services, or is it too tricky?
Not Free SF Reader
If I burn a copy of a cd I own, and give you the copy, I'm breaking the law.
If I give you a cd I own, you burn a copy, and return the original, no law is broken.
One more (salient) point:
If I come over to your house, burn a copy of your CDs using your computer, your software, and your blanks, then no law is broken either.
If I download music (legally) with a P2P program, then go into a folder so that I can listen to them. If someone else requests that music from my computer, I am not uploading it at all - my computer is, but it's doing so at the request of the downloader. It's a very important point to consider: what action am I taking to make the copy? If the answer is "none" (and it is) then no law has been broken.
According to the professors, the 600-page books will be used to smack the Canadian recording industry's executives senseless until they agree to drop the campaign.
Fabio Aquotte
IANAL - that being said, I believe the logic as far as having uploads going on while you are legally downloading material is okay in Canada. The logic being that some|most P2Ps require (or their users do) you to also share what you are downloading. As such, you are not breaking the law as your PRIMARY intent is to download.
nonsense. you just made that up.
the law doesn't work that way. it makes no difference what your PRIMARY intent is, if a side-effect of your action breaks the law, it's no excuse.
uploading may or may not be legal in canada at the moment, but either way it's not because of the "logic" you give. *if* allowing others to download from your computer is illegal (this has not been tested in court), then the use of these p2p systems that require you to do so is illegal, even if your primary intent is only to download.
If someone else requests that music from my computer, I am not uploading it at all - my computer is, but it's doing so at the request of the downloader. It's a very important point to consider: what action am I taking to make the copy? If the answer is "none" (and it is) then no law has been broken.
during the proceedings where the CRIA was requesting the names of suspected file-sharers to be divulged, the judge gave an opinion basically the same as what you said here. for a while it seemed that this type of "uploading" was legal. unfortunately the appeals court threw out that opinion. they didn't contradict it, just threw it out saying that the judge shouldn't have addressed that question at that time. so basically it still hasn't been tested in court. i believe it has been in the U.S., and the decision was that it *was* illegal copying. but i'm not sure about that, and can't give you a reference at the moment.
soon the question will be moot, since the new canadian copyright law proposes a new idea called "making available". it side-steps the issue of who is making the copy, and just says directly that making available files in your shared folder will be illegal. the law hasn't passed yet, so if you're canadian and disagree with this, you should write to your MP.
Marc Emery's balls are so big he tripped over them. Hey, them's the brakes. But seriously dudes, when she's layin' on the beach with her legs wide open with a joint in her mouth and she's still smokin' she won't care how big your balls are so make marijuana legal. MAKE MARIJUANA LEGAL
http://chrisericson.com MAKE MARIJUANA LEGAL
It took you a while, but that's pretty funny. (but then it's really not funny if you really think about it...) but then...it kinda is.
I would just like to remind Canadians about http://killbillc60.ca/ and specifically the page http://www.digital-copyright.ca/billc60/do_somethi ng.shtml which offers suggestions on what people can do.
It is very important that people speak out, otherwise no matter how many new books are authored the government will listen to the chicken little "sky is falling" crisis manufactured by the recording, motion picture, and "software manufacturing" industries.
Digital Copyright Canada forum