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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.
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
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?
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.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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.
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!
Why stop there? The current parliament session is over...all the MPs are going home. Go down to your local constituency office and make an appointment to speak to him or her in person, and lay out your concerns face to face. I doubt your MP will tell you straight to your face that he or she intends to fuck over you and your interests.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
#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.