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Canadian Politicians Demand DMCA
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist is reporting that a Canadian parliamentary committee has demanded that the government establish a Canadian DMCA. The demand, which comes in a study on counterfeiting and piracy (PDF) released on Wednesday night, recommends ratification of the WIPO Internet treaties, increasing damage awards for copyright infringement, creating new offenses for selling modification devices, and encouraging prosecutors to seek jail time for piracy violations."
Canadian Politicians Demand DMCA?
I demand new Canadian politicians.
- Canadian Voter
Since users of "Canadian" ISPs are sent warning letters about their uploading behaviour citing the American DMCA already, what would be the point of having a domestic version? Just so it could be bilingual?
These stories are free but worth money.
But who exactly demanded the DMCA-like policies? Politicians pretty much everywhere are ciphers for constituent and special interests, and so it is unusual in the extreme for a legislative idea to come tumbling unbidden from legislators' heads. So, I'm wondering whose doing the demanding such that the legislators are responding.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
that pirates represent such a huge threat to society we should spend tax dollars jailing them.
Give me a fucking break. Can we not come up with a better punishment than jail for non-violent "criminals?"
What do the Canadian citizens demand?
Soon you'll have to register as a copyright infringer for life and people will see your house on copyright infringement Google Maps overlays so they can know to keep their little ones and zeros safe from you.
My MP is on that list ... considering writing him a letter that strongly suggests he stop sucking American cock if he wants my vote again next election.
Ok, I'm a canuck but our current conservative idiots are forgetting one very important piece of legislation that helps protects the privacy of their citizens. PIPEDA protects the privacy of its citizens ~ ISP's can not divulge personally identifying information, especially to the government. so I decide to download 30 movies, there is little they can do about it. What irritates me is that this kind of 1960's thinking is what got RIAA and the Movie Industry into its current mess. Fight the technology, not embrace it. I hope the law gets thrown out like the last one did.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
Yeah, just look for the "skull-and-crossbones" flags
My blog
How can a politician who is by definition a servant of the public demand that a law be crafted according to their interests. In a democracy their job is to serve the interests of the public not the other way around, at least on paper. Or is Canada no longer a democracy?
This is ridiculous. The PC Party seems incapable of coming up with it's own ideas. All they can do is look towards the US and emulate their behaviour trying to privatize health care and adding draconian copyright legislation.
Apparently it's not enough that we're assumed guilty and pay a levy on blank media in order to cover copyright infringement, next it will be to take away fair use.
Now, don't get me wrong.. If the money actually went to the artists I'd have no problem with it, but recording companies squeezing every bit they can out of their customers is something I have no patience for.
.....now punishment at all?
Actually, I think that if someone sells a copyrighted work without permission from the copyright holder, that should be punishable.
But profitless publication (aka filesharing) is ok in my book, and should be accepted as a given part of the modern information landscape.
Hey, I already patented the list of known copyright infringer's. If you hear of something let me know so they don't infringe on my IP. There will be a reward of 3% of 5% of any money I can collect after expenses and lawyer fees. I would give you the entire 5% but 2% has to goto the patent for awarding rewards electronically.
BTW, Can I copyright the statement you just wrote? I need it to show how the patent infringement is just as serious as copyright infringement. You should have your life ruined for that too. Cause we all know we cannot be free if everyone is free...err violating my...err our IP.
white letters...on a hill? ...somkething about a forest..or woods?
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
One tables reports before the summer break so the people adversely affected will forget about them by fall. A common trick by weak or minority governments to try to defuse controversies that would threaten them in the very next question period (;-)) --dave
davecb@spamcop.net
on file in Ottawa, I think this is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
...
The DCMA won't help Canadians, only multi-nationals that suck the lifeblood of Canadian writers, artists, game designers, and musicians dry.
But, hey, what do I know, I've only flown across Canada for literary and game conventions on Canada Council grants
In Summary: Bad Idea. Very Bad.
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First off, I'm sorry for all you Canadians whose politics are getting fucked up by stupid companies.
Second, it made some small amount of sense when the DMCA was put in place in the US because it hadn't been tried before. There were no examples of the DMCA in another large, first world country failing spectacularly. I still think that Orrin Hatch is an idiot at best, but at least they had some justification for it.
But these politicians have no such defense. The DMCA was a failure by anyones metric, online piracy is out of control and pirated materials are sold without much problem. How could anyone in their right mind think that more of the same will help anything? How could anyone think that this is in Canada's best interest? This makes no sense.
p.s. This isn't meant to say anything about canada in general or to endorse piracy.
Must be a lot more popular than I thought! Continued theft of his work by legions of adoring but thrifty fans is depriving this important artist of his livelihood. Obviously, Ottawa has to get involved at once.
This is my sig.
oops, DMCA I always type too fast, where's the edit function when you need it.
Les larmes des anges sont dans mes oreilles.
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I understand what your trying to say, but no matter what you do, the stigma isn't the same.
Which list would you rather tell your girlfriend you're on?
Actually, this isn't too bad, although I'm not familiar with the WIPO part. It clearly says "distributing pirate or counterfeit works" If I buy Iron Maiden's "A Matter of Life and Death", it's not piracy. If I copy it to the hard drive, it's not piracy. If I share it, it's not a pirate work until the downloader receives it. - There's nothing in there about this situation. It's certainly not counterfeit as I'm not asserting anything about it. So it seems that I can only get in trouble if I were to download "A Matter of Life and Death" and then re-distribute it. Most of what they're talking about seems to be aimed at commercial distributors. It even allows free (as in beer) software circumvention measures. DeCSS is still safe as long as it's not sold for profit. What I have a problem with (Look at the PDF for full recommendations). 1)Enact legislation to make cam-cording in a theatre a criminal offence. This should be a tresspass offence. Kick them out, ban them and take away the camera. 2)Enact criminal legislation clearly defining offences for criminal circumvention activities... Document doesnt' specify what would be defined as such. Maybe DeCSS isn't safe. What I do like: Remove the Copyright Act from the list of indictable offences excluded from Proceeds of Crime legislation. This means we can now seize assets from commercial rings.
Just trying to set the debate straight here. If it is wrong, and if the current countermeasures aren't sufficiently deterrent, than stricter measures must be introduced.
Is it wrong to copy somebody else's work despite the owner's objections? Stick to this point...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Frankly, I have yet to see any movie to be good enough that's worth the tax payers money for policing, legal fees and the cost of keeping anyone in jail.
Has anyone made any feasibility calculations on this?
Sending people into jail for copying movies could be completely ridiculed if all citizens would come forward to claim that they did it.
Who would pay for the courts, police and jails to enforce such laws if all taxpayers would be sitting there?
Canadian Politicians get funds from RIAA
davecb5620@gmail.com
your sign of "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" probably sounds funny to Americans.
But Canadians have to trust the government is there to help them.
Distrust of government workers is a very American attitude.
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Do you see how many members are in that committee? It amazes me that anything gets accomplished with this many people on it.
If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee.
Just as parliamentarians voted to break for the summer, the Industry Committee issued its report on counterfeiting and piracy, unambiguously titled Counterfeiting and Piracy are Theft.
Ok, two things.
First off, "Industry Committee". A group that, by it's name alone admits that it does not represent the people. It represents business interests.
Secondly, "Counterfeiting and Piracy are Theft". No, they're not. Otherwise you wouldn't need laws against counterfeiting and copyright violation, now would you? Theft was already on the books as a bad thing.
What they are trying to do is to make things that aren't theft equal to theft to support their agenda. Which represents no person - only business interests.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I am a filmmaker. Even with the best efforts of an active community, DMCA like laws and regulations would be imposed in many countries. DMCA like regulations discourage/limit "freedom" to make copies of content you own.
I release my films with no content protection and region encoding and I include a note "we trust your judgment to copy/not copy this film". EBAY and Amazon restrict sales of DVDs without region encoding so I need to include region encoding only for those retailers.
I am "small enough" not to get noticed by pirates/file sharers, and I have no desire to become "large enough" to be noticed. I have seen that the best films I like and I want to make do not require huge budgets. Take a Director like Spielberg - I don't think he has made interesting films like "Duel" or "Jaws" once he grew into a "power-player". The same goes for Soderberg or other American filmmakers. (Most of the Slashdot readers are American, so I am giving examples of American filmmakers.)
What I have found is that the problem still exists in a few cartels controlling the Distribution where entry is damn difficult. Whether you are making mainstream or non-mainstream films, to get the film to theaters or television where you recoup your investment to go to the next project, you need their blessing - and thats very difficult.
As a Canadian whose been watching this since the late 90's, frankly I thought that we'd have reached this stage earlier. The media companies have been pushing the government non-stop: obviously, they are finding that Bev Oda and her Tory friends are more receptive to their message than Shiela Copps was in the Liberal days.
As the Americans have discovered, it is difficult to get rid of crappy laws. The lobbyists know this: they just have to have patience and find the right stooges in power to do their bidding, then they're set.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
I'm Canadian and I don't want a DMCA, nobody I know does. Fuck you politicians for not doing what we want.
Twinstiq, game news
Canada puts a surcharge on all recordable media, supposedly because of "piracy" which goes to the big media companies.... even if you are backing up your word docs onto CD you pay this RIAA tax.
How much you wanna bet these politicians are not "demanding" this to be abolished?
Prostitutes demand sex!!!
Moving along...
My bicyles
It's not distrust of government workers, it a distrust of government in general. And it dates back all the way to the founding of the Republic.
Read the Federalist Papers, for more details.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
and to get 'em, they have to take the DMCA.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
That would be Joe Public. What pisses me off is that since the media is controlled by the special interests in this that we get a filtered view of the issue. The public has no idea that all this change to copyright (and abuse of patents et al) are eroding things like fair use, innovation and in fact creates barriers to entry. Oh well, aparantly we the public don't know what's best for us. :P
Oops, how did this get here?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
non-resident Canadians vote? If so how?
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
While I do appreciate the comments on these forums as they are usually informative and funny, in this case the forums are not the place for your comments.
I know, all systems are flawed and MPs are corrupt, blah blah blah; BUT, we have MPs for the purpose of representing us in Parliament. Use them.
Write your MP. Tell them that you do not support this, and that your vote will be based on who represents you best, and not what colour they wear on their party logo. Maybe, just maybe, if we get enough support we can start to direct our government in a direction chosen by it's citizens instead of corporations.
I wrote mine.. wappel.t@parl.gc.ca
You must be either an American or an Albertan.
Real Canadians basically trust government. I know this is hard for you to grok, but it's true.
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RIAA Demands Canadian Politicians to Demand DMCA
The current Canadian government (Conservative) is well known for emulating the Bush administration in style and method and also wanting to pander to American interests merely because they are American interests, regardless of the merit or demerit of anything. The usual argument is that "the Americans are our largest trading partner, we must not anger them". I remember when this was cited, by conservative MP's during parliament, as the whole fucking reason Canadians should support the US invasion of Iraq, no more no less. This shows you just how moronic these people are, that they would follow Americans into hell just because of some perceived friendly alliance or loyalty that is not reciprocal.
I'm sure the same thing is going on here. Canuckistan became more like Bush Amerika the day the Conservatives won the election.
Yep, I'm a US-ian. The bit on the Federalist should have clued you in.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Pray tell me Sir, whose Dog are you?
/.ers pleases send the above to your pols.
-Alexander Pope 1738
Dear Canadian
Regrettably it is already far too clear who are masters of our own(d)!
-An embarrased USian
If copyrighted songs and movies were really valuable commodities like cash in a bank, why aren't people downloading 24/7? Why don't people download or make millions of copies of the exact same file?!?! The fact is IP is not property which can be stolen. When minds evolve to digital recroder like status such that songs and books and movies and ideas can be played back with perfect clarity at will, the charge that IP is an attempt to control thought and the real property of others (not the property of those claiming IP) will be perfectly clear. We already have machines as body parts, such as pace makers, artificial limbs, etc. Viva l'internet revolution!
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
It's always good to be reminded that Americans aren't the only ones on the planet who have attained criminal idiocy.
I wrote to him concerning DMCA and copyright issues and he replied. He sounded very pro-DMCA and pro restrictive copyright despite the very careful wording. It is really odd because he's a Conservative (Liberals are media darlings, just like Democrats in the US). I won't be voting for him come next election which isn't too far off, that's for sure.
That's all I have to say.
Anyone have a list of email addresses for our MPs? I'm not too sure what Premiere David McGuinty and Member of Parliament Dalton McGuinty's email addresses are. I'd call 'em but I prefer to keep a bit of privacy.
The article says
# create a new offence for the manufacture or distribution of circumvention devices for commercial gain
Nowhere does it say I can't hack something for personnal usage.
# create a new criminal offence for manufacturing, reproducing, importing, distributing, and selling counterfeit goods
So if I keep it to myself, I'm not illegal.
From what I understand, the DMCA doesn't even allow those two things.
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteeList.aspx?Lan g=1&PARLSES=391&JNT=0&SELID=e18_&COM=10476
And here's a letter I sent to my MP (who's on the committee)
Dear sir,
I worry that in light of the INDU's demand of a Canadian DMCA, you fail to discriminate between COUNTERFITTING (which nobody supports) and Intellectual Property "piracy". I fear that industry lobbyists be given carte blanche to draft anti-piracy laws based on outdated and self-serving interests.
I'd like to draw your attention to the following:
- the Copyright Act is properly recognised as being a careful balance between the rights of creators and the rights of the public including viewers' readers and listeners
- the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously affirmed this view in CCH Canadian Ltd v Law Society of Upper Canada;
- digital technologies have recently given copyright holders the ability to upset the balance in the Copyright Act by preventing Canadians from accessing works for purposes that have been legally granted to them;
- the creation of original works is nourished by wide accessibility of earlier works' including a vibrant public domain;
- dissemination of cultural ideas requires that they be preserved in a form that is accessible to future generations; and
- historically consultations regarding changes to the Copyright Act have mostly taken place with creators' intermediaries and only some special users such as educators and librarians
THEREFORE, I call upon you as my elected Member of Parliament to ensure generally that users are recognised as interested parties and are meaningfully consulted about proposed changes to the Copyright Act and to ensure in particular that any changes at least preserve all existing users rights' including the right to use copyrighted materials under Fair Dealing and the right to make private copies of audio recordings. I would further call upon Parliament not to extend the term of copyright; and to recognise the right of citizens to personally control their own communication devices.
Sincerely,
voting constituent,
Vernon, BC
No, it's a Representative Democratic Republic with a Monorachial Syndicalist Anarchism overlaying a Feudalistic Senate. That last part didn't change until more than a century later.
...
Get your terms straight, eh?
Next thing you know you'll be telling me the Cabinet isn't actually appointed by the monarch's representative, the Governor General, God rest her soul
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Would you guys shut the fuck up with these stupid Bryan Adams Selene Dion jokes you parrot from fucking South Park and other media every time you hear the word Canada.
South Park poking fun at Canada is funny, your stupid parroting is not. Also we're having a conversation which has nothing to do with Brian Adams at all.
We should just give Canada ours. We don't really want it anyway.
"You must be either an American or an Albertan. Real Canadians basically trust government. I know this is hard for you to grok, but it's true."
Not sure where you're from but that's just plain wrong. I am a real Canadian and I have NEVER trusted my government, nor yet have I seen one in power that I even liked. And it isn't like I'm some barely old enough to vote kid either. I remember as a kid when Trudeau was elected. I remember as an adult how he, and every leader since him (except maybe Joe Clark, who wasn't around long enough), have bent the Western Canadians over and fucked us. At least Trudeau had the guts to be up front about giving us the finger.
Ah, so you are an Albertan.
I stand correct.
Now, go secede and be treated as scum by the Yanks as you know you will be.
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The committee report shows Michael Geist as the only academic witness. All others were from corporate/trade interests. Where were the public interest advocates?
I just learned something I didn't know before, letters to MP's do not require postage in Canada.
Anyone already got a letter already prepared to send to their MP? If so, post it, and I'll print it and send it to mine (despite the fact he's a Liberal). Its worth the cost of an envelope.
Thanks
#1: Parliament voted and dissolved for the summer.
#2: Bare Naked Ladies(the band, take your mind outta the gutter). They and the Nettwerk music label oppose these kinds of actions. They also have money and the public ear. As far as a music label goes, Nettwerk is the one without the goaty. Combined with Michael Geist and we have the Canadian version of the Justice League.
#3: We still, thankfully, have a privacy commissioner. So enforcement of this would be a little bunk.
#4: Minority Gov't. Though the Bloc(the balance tipping power that solely is interested within their own province of Quebec is being more then their usual asshole selves towards the rest of the nation, there's no way, as a party, they would let this happen. Neither would the NDP. And the Liberals would smell the blood from miles away. Yes, I know the committee has peoples from all parties, but it doesn't mean the party itself would act on their behalf.
I could be wrong(though I really hope I'm not), but I don't see this swimming.
Check out this article while you're at it. Seems Ontario's Attorney General thinks it's ok that "cars adapted for street racing can be seized and destroyed, even if charges haven't been laid and a race has not taken place". In other words, screw the legal system, if the cops think your car may be used for street racing at somer point, they can impound it and destroy it and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
See, these events are the ultimate result of creating a nanny-state. Eventually the government will want to take away ALL your rights, while insisting it's doing it to "protect you". People insist that the US is a police state, while I as a Canadian can be arrested for unpopular speech, have severe limitations on the ownership of weapons, don't have the right to protect my property with physical force of ANY kind, including open-hand control, and now can have my private property destroyed by the government just because I'm suspected of maybe intending to commit a crime. Face it, we lost our rights a long time ago. Those of you protesting against this DMCA act are trying to close the barn doors after all the animals have run off, and the rest of the barn burned to the ground.
As a musician myself, I don't agree with the current
practice of selling music or ideas. Which I why I freely
share what I produce under the GPL.
The RIAA and like are upset because this method, and the
direction the world of technology is going will make their
business model obsolete.
-----
The thing all things devour:
Birds, trees, beasts, flowers
gnaws iron, bites steel
grinds hard stones to meal;
slays kings, ruins towns,
And beats high mountains down.
Just today I discovered someone was plagarizing some of my copyrighted material. Had the person asked permission, I probably would have given the go ahead so long as he included proper credits and a link. Since he just took it upon himself to duplicate my work and claim credit, fuck him. I want to send a DMCA style take down notice.
-- Will program for bandwidth
If Canadian artists don't want this type of copyright reform, then why should the government be forcing it on them?
-Aikon
What to make a difference? Stop preaching to the converted at Slashdot and write to the Canadian
politicians, who might actually make a difference. Their web pages provide email addresses.
The membership of the committee making these recommendations is here. The INDU report lists
the "witnesses" in Appendix A: all big media and software businesses.
Send each of these politicians an email message. That's how the system works. Use it or
shut up about the consequences, because it'll be YOUR fault then. If can't write them all, at least write to the chaiman and a few others.
Guess canada wants to lose business too.
Of course, in Canada it'll be called the DMC, eh?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086373/
This is my sig.
This logic is equally true, whether A is murder, marijuana smoking, speeding, or, indeed, copying/sharing somebody else's works. By this logic, the punishment for "jaywalking" (to which I feel "infringement without gain" is roughly equivalent) would be eventually raised to beheading.
We had a system like this. It's was originally called the "Hammurabi code." As recently as a few centuries ago, there were gallows rows. It's a backwards justice system we abandoned decades ago.
We no longer have a binary "right/wrong" switch in our system any more, because it doesn't make sense, for example, for starvation (and an accompanying bread theft) to be a hanging offense. There are therefore shades of wrong in our system, perspective, mercy, restraint, and punishments that are meant to fit the degree of the crime.
This is something apparently new to you, as you insist on limiting the argument to whether a given crime is right or wrong, with no mention of severity.
But in our current justice system, sometimes things are "illegal" so that if an issue is made of it we can determine who is in "the wrong." In other words, we're more interested in whether harm was done.
Any crime can go unpunished, for instance, if no one presses charges.
In the case of copyright, there's an issue of when a "criminal offense," as opposed to "civil liability," is even indicated.
Thus, with our jaywalking example, if someone strikes a jaywalker with his car, that driver is saved an awful lot of liability, and possibly criminal charges, by saying "but the guy was jaywalking. He ran out in front of me." He's got a much more troublesome defense if he hits someone in the crosswalk.
And that's why jaywalking is a ticketable offense. A lot of the law works like this. It's there to determine who is wrong should the issue see a court. Not to deter the action, but to make it an action with consequences that can determine culpability when there is actual harm done.
Thus, sure copying without permission is "wrong," but that's a red herring. The degree of wrong is the real question. "What is a reasonable penalty, if any?" is the question to be asked.
Now you run along and try to prove the actual "grave harm" that one guy copying one song does that is somehow commensurate to the maximum sentence set forth in the U.S. DMCA, and not about $1.
That's a conversation worth having.
--
Toro
I think the lessons are licensed as CC Attrib - Non commercial - Non deriv.
Arrrrrh!
Ironically, the conservatives used to be the only party that opposed the strengthening of copyright law. I guess they ditched that platform, just like the few other policies they had that weren't completely awful.