Canadian DMCA Coming This Spring

An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian government is reportedly ready to introduce copyright reform legislation this spring, provided that no election is called. The new bill would move Canada far closer to the U.S. on copyright, with DMCA-style anti-circumvention legislation that prohibits circumvention of DRM systems and bans software and mod chips that can be used to circumvent such systems."

Comments

Not "coming"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "coming" as the summary suggests, it's only a bill being put forward.

Kneejerk reaction (IMO)

[zappepcs]

This is just a kneejerk reaction to the rumor about Internet radio stations moving to Canada since the CRB decided to price them out of business.

If I were Canadian, I wouldn't worry so much about DMCA as I would the US pushing hard enough that the Canadian government rolls over on measures that protect their own music and film industries. Hollywood has been losing business to Canadian industry for years now.

The DMCA would just be one measure to strong arm the entire continent into a position of propping up the **AA at any cost to the consumer.

Odds are...

[Bullfish]

An election will be called within the next month or two, after that, it all depends on who gets into office, but I think it foolish to think that another other party in power would not be pressured by the various lobbies to do their bidding. And all political parties love the money that comes with lobbies.

Re:pay double

[gobbo]

i'm in this rock band. we are, as one local journalist stated, "startlingly unsuccessful". so, we record and release a compact disc. it's a run of 500 and we sell, maybe, ten (thanks mom!) and lose a tonne of money. this is not an unusual scenario.
but the kicker is this: we pay the levy on the blank cd's we use for our release. this means that some major-label canadian artist (ms. levign perhaps) is actually making money off of my band's record while my band is losing money.

Well, all you have to do is join the American Federation of Musicians, then apply to the Canadian Private Copying Collective for a zero-rating on the levy.

That should save you $105 on your purchase of 500 blanks (yes, $0.21 on ea.!!), and after the $60 application fee for the zero-rating and the $112.00 annual AFM dues plus the $115 initiation fee, you'll have saved -$182 ...oh.

I was archiving field recordings on blank media, and paying a levy. At some point, I just broke down and started downloading mp3's so that I didn't feel so ripped off.