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

I am skeptical

[5, Troll]

Two things: In the current political climate, such a bill would not get much traction as there is a minority government who desperately wants to become a majority next election. Bills such as the one described don't get you votes as it doesn't benefit the majority of voters.

Second, it's my understanding that the current state of copyright in Canada is that it is not the form in which a copyrighted work is held (ie DVD, CD, mp3, avi), but the manner in which it is used. So, you can have a zillion mp3s for personal use, but you cannot use them in a publication, or broadcast them without the express consent of the copyright holders.

In my mind, it would be very hard to change current law in such a way so as to preserve the status quo, such as libraries.

Plus, they already tax removable media to compensate the rights-holders of all major video and audio media(while screwing independants... which is another topic for another day), so you'd think that they would either have to remove that levy, or all people to continue doing what they are doing.

Reply on previous version

[Locklin]

I emailed my MP about the previous version of this bill, and this was his response:

Dear Mr. Locklin,

Thank you for your letter regarding Copyright Reform.

I supported C-60 I would do so again if a similar Bill is reintroduced in the House of Commons. Bill C-60 only made it to the First Reading stage and subsequently fell off the Orders for debate.

With any amendment that is put forth to a Government Bill, whether through the debate stage or committee stage, it must be balanced in such a way that it doesn't make the legislation appear to be too ambiguous. I as a Member of Parliament I would need to see the how Digital Rights Management (DRM) component of any new legislation would affect not only the industry but also the consumer and whether individual privacy rights would be affected?

There has yet to be any new Copyright legislation to come before the House of Commons in this session. I will note your concerns if it eventually does.

Sincerely,

Hon. Andrew Telegdi, P.C., M.P.
Kitchener-Waterloo

Re:pay double

[Frymaster]

Taking Sweden as an example, there they tax all storage media (not just "removable" media) with this levy. Actually it's not really a tax (taxing illegal activities is illegal itself), but a state protected fee which a private organization is allowed to collect and without insight into how, distribute parts of the sum to a secret list of copyright holders.

canada has a similar law, although it only applies to removable media such as blank cds. now, normally i like the levy, since it helps keep the copyright rottweilers at bay, but consider this...

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.

amazing stuff.