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Canadian Politicians Demand DMCA

Posted by kdawson on from the couldn't-blame-canada-then dept.

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."

10 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. Canadian Politicians Demand DMCA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Canadian Politicians Demand DMCA?

    I demand new Canadian politicians.

    - Canadian Voter

    1. Re:Canadian Politicians Demand DMCA by Synchis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As a Canadian voter myself, I second that!

      A Canadian version of the DMCA, simply put, will do absolutely NOTHING.

      If people are copying software, music and movies now, what makes anybody think that increasing fines, or putting stiffer punishments is going to deter people from doing it in the future?

      The plain and simple fact of the matter is just this: Most people who download music, or copy DVD's don't realize that its illegal, or if they do know that its illegal, they simply don't care.

      Creating a duplicate law in Canada to mirror the already proven ineffective DMCA in the US is just one step closer to having a more American nation. There are ways to deal with the copying of DVD's or the downloading of music. This is not a good way to deal with it.

      Also, for those who didn't RTFA, this "demand" is based on data collected from a study done almost 10 years ago, and even the conductors of the study claimed that the numbers were at best, sketchy. It seems to me that its just more pressure from American corporations to get their laws pushed onto Canadians as well.

      Lets see a real study into this... with real numbers. I bet we'll find that:

      A: The movie industry is doing just fine! (Spiderman 3 set all time records... I think that says it all.)

      B: The piracy problem isn't as bad as they make it out to be. (While they calculate lost profits based on a per file transfer basis, they fail to remove those people that likely wouldn't have bought the movie anyways.)

      --
      Thomas A. Knight
      Author of The Time Weaver
    2. Re:Canadian Politicians Demand DMCA by aichpvee · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How is it a good day for "honest" people? What happens after this DMCA-like law gets passed and Honest Joe Canada wants to back up the children's DVDs because Honest Joe Canada, Jr enjoys chewing on the discs but can't because he's law-abiding (regardless of the quality of the law) and it's illegal?

      Seriously, get the fuck out! Laws like this ONLY hurt the "honest" people. Everyone else is going to continue downloading anyway and this won't slow that down one bit.

      --
      The Farewell Tour II
  2. Pardon me... by Elemenope · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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)
    1. Re:Pardon me... by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I noticed that it didn't say "Canadian citizens demand...".

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  3. What about the citizens? by amigabill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What do the Canadian citizens demand?

    1. Re:What about the citizens? by 9mm+Censor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Beer and hockey

  4. How does that work exactly? by Irvu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

  5. Ah, an "Industry Committee" by Weaselmancer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  6. Expected, and probably inevitable by debest · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!