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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."
...call an election!
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
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.
Please mod me only (+) Underrated or (-) Troll
It's not "coming" as the summary suggests, it's only a bill being put forward.
No wonder the rest of the world thinks we're a bunch of backwards hicks up here in our igloos. We don't even have the DMCA yet. This should do a lot to remedy our image. Finally some forward thinking going on up here!
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
I bet it will work as amazingly as it has in the US!
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.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Just remember a valuable lesson from our dear departed Mr John Candy, all vulgar spraypaint must be in BOTH english and french.
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
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
... what happened to charging the music industry's Big Four for cartel activities, or the movie industry over the DVD regions dividing the market into convenient zones (also cartel-like), despite WTO goals of free markets?
Oh, that's right. They paid off the politicans. Is the lobster to your taste, Mr. Hatch?
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.
for the past 6 years ive been hearing nothing but rumors about how certain elements (puppets) in the canadian government have been trying to "harmonize" canadian copyright with the US, and every time theyve tried they've met with ever stiffening resistance from very vocal and powerful anti-dmca groups, from a powerful coalition of canadian artists to the canadian papers and the public at large.
I expect to see such a bill die a public, horrible death. If it does not, however, i'll look forward to the business many developing nations will see as the modchip makers and circumvention tool developers jump ship.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
.... topic and why it's a bad idea here:
m m_copyrightreform.asp
http://www.caut.ca/en/bulletin/issues/2004_nov/co
Highly recommended reading for Canadians who wish to see why the House Of Commons should bury this idea today.
For those of you who don't know who Michael Geist is, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Geist for more info.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
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.
2 1337 4 u!
And one argument that has earned a lot of traction here goes like this:
- DRMs (TPMs, in the jargon) may *in theory* be used to protect artists'/publishers' rights, but in practice they are far more often used to grant publishers new rights, far beyond what the law allows. For example: the copyright holder *has no right*, under law, to say when and how you're allowed to access the media that you've lawfully purchased. Yet this is the "right" that TPMs are most commonly used to "enforce".
- Therefore, TPMs are used by publishers unilaterally to rewrite their own rights. If it's illegal to circumvent anything calling itself a TPM, then all other "rights" granted to consumers are worthless.
- So the million-dollar question is this: "Who do you think should be responsible for defining publishers' rights in respect of copyright material? Publishers themselves, or democratically answerable politicians?"
Good luck.
For as long as I pay a levy on any recordable media, I will continue to download what I like. If they'd like to challenge me in court, I look forward to asking what exactly I paid that tax for whenever I buy a spool of CDs, DVDs, etc. Royalties for nothing? Government trying to profit from illegal activity?
And I will continue to apply hacks wherever needed to get around designed weaknesses/inabilities/stupidity. For example, I have a hard disk in my PS2 - I need a modchip to load games off this disk. I load all of my store-bought games onto this disk because if I keep using the PS2's DVD drive, it will almost certainly fail within a few years. I used to use a "digital video stabilizer" to strip Macrovision scrambling off of DVDs so I could watch them - the only way between my player and TV was through my VCR (it converted co-ax to composite) and the Macrovision messed with my VCR, so I removed it. I pity the fool who tries to charge me for something like this.
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.
Damn those pesky terrorists