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Canada's New DMCA Considered Worst Copyright Law
loconet writes "The government of Canada is preparing to attempt to bring a new DMCA-modeled copyright law in Canada in order to comply with the WIPO treaties the country signed in 1997. (These treaties were also the base of the American DMCA.) The new Canadian law will be even more restrictive in nature than the American version and worse than the last Canadian copyright proposal, the defeated Bill C-60. Among the many restrictive clauses in this new law, as Michael Geist explains, is the total abolishment of the concept of fair use: 'No parody exception. No time shifting exception. No device shifting exception. No expanded backup provision. Nothing.' Geist provides a list of 30 things that can be done to address the issues."
A you saying it's entirely possible that in the very near future Canadians might start envying American digital rights liberties? I think my head is going to explode...
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
This is hardly surprising. The current Canadian government is more interested in mirroring American political issues than doing the bidding of it's own people.
Most of us here are embarrassed. Sorry, we'll vote better next time.
Kill it with fire.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
So, you who live in Canada, how probable do you think it is that this will fly?
The only way to stay sane in an insane world, is to be mad yourself...
Geist's list of 30 things you can do, linked to in TFS, is pretty good, actually, no matter where you live. Even if your country already has a DMCA-like law, you can still fight for it or certain provisions of it to be repealed. Just replace the Canadian-sepcific info with the equivalents in your country.
Furthermore, some of it just plain good advice -- only buy DRM-free music and videos, release stuff under the Creative Commons licenses. And so forth.
Most of you are gonna be like, yeah, yeah, but no one cares. That's not true anymore. Now that the MAFIAA have become a nuisance and even public enemy #1 as far as some are concerned, the public will push for change. Like it or not, most politicians eventually cave to public opinion. After all, they need the public's support in order to get elected.
My blog
After that whole dollar thing, I thought we'd never be able to make fun of Canada again.
Blame Canada! Woohoo!
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
... If you needed common sense. Now it's basically the 51st state since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister (or "Steve" as GWB calls him). Too bad.
The good news is that the song "Blame Canada" will now have some real life relevance.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I'd say extremely unlikely. We've been fairly (and rightly) entitled to fair use, personal copying etc for a while now thanks to the levy. All this will do is create confusion and cloud the issue.
That said, if there is any sort of Canadian Consumers user group that I could contribute to in order to help oppose ridiculous lobby-funded wastes of our government (and people!)'s time like this, I'd be more than willing to contribute...
If you are Canadian, I encourage you to contact your member of parliament and make sure they know you, as a voter, want them to put the concerns of Canadian consumers before big business (especially foreign big business).
Canada gets some more value out of their money, and suddenly, they think they can beat us at everything?
Nobody is as corrupt as US Politicians, I mean hell... we came up with Net Neutrality. Beat that Canada!
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
What about television news shows? If the equivalent of the concept of fair use doesn't exist, are they no longer permitted to report on issues for which they didn't do the original information gathering? What if it's a cited work?
I admit, I only read the summary for this one, but based on the summary, it appears to be one of the first (if only) accurate Slashdot article titles ever. This truly is the worst copyright law ever conceived. For that matter, it sounds like it would take a truly stupendous lapse in the mental faculties of any politician involved in order to come to the point where one thinks that this would be a good idea.
Well, at least there's another reminder that American politicians aren't the only stupid ones...not that such is really encouraging.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
than previously disbelieved. the lights are coming up all over now. there's nowhere left to hide.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators. the last (new)clear(powered) opposition to unprecedented evile's life0cidal pillaging of yOUR planet/population. see you there?
....massive, blatant disrespect and disregard for the law. Take away the uses that the grand masses think are reasonable, and the balance will change. Everyone working with risk knows it's something like probability x impact. If millions do it, the risk will be low regardless of the penalty, and the penalty becomes a freak accident like being hit by a car. And in saner parts of the worlds, we won't let people be bankrupt for life over sharing 26$ worth of iTunes music.
The United States is worse!
That does it! I'm moving to... oh wait
Given the historical trends to avoid such laws up here, it will (hopefully) not get passed and enacted. Why? Several reasons: 1) Local providers for various media and services will not tolerate losing clients (to an extent) in an already limited market in Canada. With about 30-35 million people, there isn't much to keep on top of as it is. 2) The nature of Canadian laws and somewhat common sense. Seeing as this law would appear to leave no greater benefit for Canadian people (unless certain politicians were paid off) especially if several reports or inquiries were/are being made to validate the cries of murder that US-based groups have been making over copyright issues. 3) Obvious attempt to vent on another country than their own. They hate the fact our copyright laws are more "loose", or as I put it, realistic. We may be economically tied to the US, but there's no need to follow political and overbearing social suit in this case. While officially if/when this proposal is shot down, more politically correct rhetoric will be used to indicate their disapproval in getting this flustered over something that isn't as bad as it is made out to be. 4) Lack of financial benefit in precedence. If #2 holds, then data will more than likely be found in that such attempts to sue or garnish apparent "violators" of copyright will yield in next to nothing. Either the charge was bogus or exaggerated, the person won't be able to pay and/or it'll be thrown out of court locally. Precedence has shown this. So, it won't fly here, most likely. It's possible I'll grant that, but it'll likely get quashed.
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Angry Dome.
30 things that can be done to address the issues
I'd say better not. It'd be much better if the law would be passed in that very form. The stronger the law, the less likely it'll ever be enforced. Judges will have to impose penalties to normal people that will have just taped some program for later viewing. Probably the judge himself will have done the same. Probably most of the people voting "yes" for the law will have done the same. The situation will be really untenable, and the whole law will gather dust. If they end with a "reasonable" law, perhaps they'll end up really enforcing it.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
The parliament can vote whatever-the-law they want, but they still have to apply it. And the RCMP (our equivalent of the US FBI) explicitly said that they won't go after any individual for copyright infringement...
So what's the use of a law if you're not to enforce it?
This is the result of a treaty we signed in 1997. We are obligated to make a stupid law like this. We signed an agreement to do so. We signed it in 1997. Anyone remember who was Prime Minister then? It wasn't Harper. He wasn't even a conservative. I'll give you a hint, he was a crooked thief who gave big money contracts to his friends.
-it's an ingrained part of Canadian culture. If the freedom to parodize copyrighted works is removed, then there's going to have to be a multi-billion dollar "cleanup" of existing parody material. The worst hit would be Canadian comedy as a whole. Shows like Air Farce, political cartoons, and the like would abruptly be susceptible to malevolent lawsuits. And what of the perennial short story/animated NFB classic "The Hockey Sweater"? If the copyright holders for the Leafs or the Habs was feeling mean it could be locked away never to be seen again.
This even concerns me directly as I like to make parody comics. I don't want to be threatened with a legal drubbing for making a joke that happens to make fun of a copyrighted work.
Luckily, as a Canadian I'm good at writing strongly worded yet polite letters. I'm even willing to risk walking down the icy hill and visit the legislature. This will not stand.
Starkle, starkle, little twink.
This article, by nature, is useless because of who posted it. Can we get the opinion of someone who's NOT a known tin-hatter?
Go read the bill (linked in TFS) and form your own opinion then.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Do any of them involve the use of rubber chickens and a garrote?
"Where's my other sock?" - A. Einstein
What's most scary with these ideas is that I fear few upcoming politicians will, if they come into effect, have the guts to abolish them later. It's like eroding peoples' rights to privacy in surveillance societies. "If you have nothing to hide, what are you afraid of?" As soon as they'd try to take something like this in effect out again, they'd get the whole media industry against them, and they usually make more noise through money than the individuals. People just tend to adapt to the new circumstances. Just watch how popular iTunes is, despite the people not owning something they're in control of. People just gape and swallow anyway.
:-(
I wonder how long it'll take to repair the damage Bush did to USA, for example. Politicians that intend to take out regulations and point to that infamous piece of paper unfortunately don't grow on trees.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Seems to me this version of the law is so restrictive that it was designed to fail. But why? Maybe they intend this as an initial move so that when they do submit the actual bill they want, people wont react as strongly to it; and it slips through:(
OK, maybe someone can help: Is supporting the DMCA a liberal proposition?
I have always been told how much more liberal Canada is than the USA. I would guess the DMCA would be conservative, but then I realize how much liberal politicians support the entertainment industry, so I'm not sure.
Also I guess it makes sense that if you're liberal, you support the rights of others to earn a living, so you would want musicians to be paid, although I don't think record labels are very liberal.
Did the Conservatives take over liberal Canada, or is the DMCA a liberal law? Someone with a political science degree please help, Wikipedia has not been informative.
I just moved here. Now I've gotta move back.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Can we get the opinion of someone who's NOT a known tin-hatter?
Frankly, I'm tired of people being characterized as a tinfoil hatter when they point out that a bill, as written, can have bad effects.
Every time those laws are used to do bad things, we get gnashing of teeth and wailing from the congresscritters: "I had no idea that our law would ever be used this way." To which I wish I could tell them to their face "then you shouldn't have written it that way, you fuckwits". Continuing to hide behind "unintended consequences" when the so-called "tinfoil hatters" told them what the consequences would be makes them liars and/or idiots.
Anne Murray will be even more of a bitch if this law passes?
Or just host fair use/parody/etc on servers in the US, outside the jurisdiction of Canadian courts. If it works for the White Aryan Nation whack-a-moles (who moved their servers from Canada to the US to escape Canadian laws about propagating hate literature), it can work for everyone else ...
Kevin Smith on Prince
Wasn't the woman in charge of copyright reform in the Canadian Government and in a closet relationship with a member of the Canadian Recording Industry Association?
I can't find the reference, now, but thought it relevant. Maybe someone can find it?
note to governments all over the world:
the world will NOT stop if the mega-rich media moguls make a little less money in the new 'digital millennia' (god, I hate that phrase). why do they have a 'god given right' to extort money from customers but the customers get less and less fair-use rights, over time?
lawmakers, please stop being slaves to media corporations. we all know they help pay your salary (kickbacks) but we, the real citizens, also contribute to your salary (our tax base). please don't forget you are there to serve neutrally and fairly.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I haven't RTFA, but I'm thinking they should sue the laws of physics. Cause no matter how hard you push, you can't increase the speed of light. Just wondering how they will differentiate between a really long propagation delay and a short time-shift?
You know, since George Bush took office, we Americans have been hearing about how we're screwing up our civil rights, wrecking the western world and so forth, how copyrights are evil, and so on. Yeah, the PATRIOT ACT is aweful and Homeland Security may as well be another name for Gestapo, but, one would have thought that in light of all of this criticism, that, European styled nations would have gone and done something smarter, but, it seems like, instead of that, they've gone and tried to outdo American mistakes.
Consider:
the USA has some stepped up security, but in the UK, they've gone completely bonkers. If the island nation doesn't sink under the weight of all of its cameras, the utter assault on civil liberties, in so many ways, will just drive freedom loving Brits insane.
the USA is criticized for not supporting free speech enough, but in Europe, anything construed as anti-politically correct is muzzled in one way or another. In the UK, the BBC is trying to promote the virtues of Islam while at the same time promoting anti-Christian material. In Germany, whack jobs like Scientologists are actually -banned-. In France, riot police are fanning out, again, into the Paris suburbs, dressed more like soldiers, and they are trying to keep yet another outburst in check. France has been rocked by massive strikes.
Now, even the Canadians, of all people, probably the best example of European liberalism, are now succumbing to an even grimmer version of the DMCA. What's next for Canada? Geez, one would think that while the world's environmentalists are condemning Bush's proposal to drill in Alaska, that the Canadians wouldn't go and do something aweful and utterly trash a much larger area of land looking for oil sands or diamonds. But oh, they did.
Fortunately, the European styled nations, having signed Kyoto, have reduced their greenhouse gasses more than the USA, except, well, the USA seems to achieved more greenhouse gas reduction as of late due to the surge in fuel prices, a rapid rollout of energy efficient lighting, among other things.
Heck, maybe after Bush is done with the USA, he can become President of the European Union, and straighten all you guys out! Look at all he's done for the USA!
This is my sig.
....place I'm not moving too. You guys won't get my awesome Mario Kart skills now!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
A little background may shed some light on Prof. Geist's comments. Canada has no 'fair use' law - we have 'fair dealing' which is more restrictive to users. While American copyright law describes what rights copyright owners have, and everything else is open to users, Canadian copyright law describes what narrow rights copyright users have, and everything else is restricted.
When Prof. Geist talks about time- and format-shifting, parody, and backup exceptions, these are not exceptions to copyright that are being taken away from Canadians. These are rights that, technically, we've never had. Unlike the US, which had the famous Sony/Betamax case which legalized VCRs, we have never had that debate, and consumers would likely lose if we did. VCRs and PVRs (DVRs) are in a legal grey area at best, if not outright illegal, and yet they are in virtually every home.
This leads to Canada lagging behind with adoption of newer technologies, due to the legally questionable situation manufacturers might find themselves in. TiVo just announced their entry into the Canadian market (officially) this month. How can our government move to reform copyright, and in the process make criminals of virtually everyone? How do we get out of our current contradictory mess of copyright law in Canada, through which downloading of copyrighted material from the internet is legal, and yet VCRs are not?
This bill has not yet been introduced, so we cannot even read it for ourselves to confirm or deny these rumours. That said, I urge every Canadian reading this post to write (snail-mail is best!) their MP post haste and let them know that they don't want to become a criminal every time they transfer songs from their CDs to their iPod, or use their PVR/DVR or VCR. No postage necessary. You can find your MP here: http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E/
Hon. Josée Verner and Hon. Jim Prentice are the ministers in charge of the copyright file. Write them too!
Corporate sponsored legislation is becoming the way of the world, no? Makes you stop worrying about who's behind the politicians and worry about who's behind the corporations. Maybe those guys ranting about the Illuminati and the Bilderbergers were right...
The Tea Party is just the GOP with a bag over its head.
I do not think that this copyright initiative will happen in the form suggested, though I think it is a good chance that some level of DMCA-like provisions will come into being in the years to come. Not only is the Hollywood lobby very strong, but the Liberals under PM Cretien signed the WIPO copyright treaty almost enthusiastically a decade ago...and just like with Kyoto Canada has been castigated for not living up to their promises by signing a treaty and not following through with required legislation.
Anyways, the Liberals (currently the main opposition party in the lower house of the minority gov't) have been in support for a more Hollywood-friendly copyright regime (media corporate types like the Asper family, etc are very loyal long-time Liberals). If the Conservatives were to introduce a DMCA-like bill it would most likely receive support from the Liberals and it would easily pass over the objections of the NDP and Bloq parties. That said, and although politics in Canada are much more rigid along party lines than in the US, the current political situation makes it less likely to be a confidence motion and individual MPs may vote against the party line on this issue. Quite frankly (and unlike Kyoto), copyright law is very very low on the political priority list and showing some independence on this issue wouldn't be damaging to an MPs political aspirations.
So although the "blue Tories" (former "Mulroney-style" PCs) may back this bill, there is a chance some "green Tories" (former Reform and Alliance members) may object on both populist and libertarian grounds. The Industry Minister and Heritage Minister would be the ones steering this bill, with the former having a higher profile in cabinet than the latter. Until recently, Maxime Bernier was Industry minister and is known to be a "green Tory" (backer of the former Alliance party and fairly libertarian-oriented) and Heritage minister Bev Oda was a fairly weak influence. As a result copyright reform was stalled as the governent not only gave it a low priority, they also resisted the more draconian requirements of the WIPO agreement. Now a "blue Tory" (Jim Prentice) is industry minister and could be more receptive to a Canadian DMCA. OTOH, the new Heritage minister is Josee Vernier, and she is more visible than Bev Oda was. Josee is also a "green Tory" (leaned more towards the old Alliance party than the old PCs, and is still a strong supporter of the ADQ party in Quebec which is very Reform/Alliance-like). Like Bernier, she is more apt to consider individuals consumer rights and freedoms than many other MPs. Furthermore, there is some antagonism between media conglomerates and the current governing party and as such the Harper Tories are less likely to bend over for them.
The Liberals historically support the DMCA, though "Martin Liberals" (more right-leaning like former PM Martin) have less influence now. High-profile Liberal MPs with NDP histories like Bob Rae and Ujjal Dosanjh are pretty left-leaning and would object to a DMCA for very different reasons than a "green Tory" would (more because it is too friendly to industry rather than its impact on individual freedoms). Plus, left-leaning Liberals are apt to vote against anything that looks too American-like such as the DMCA (whether or not it is a good thing). The Liberals are also less principled/less ideological and their platform shifts greatly with the polls, so they are not likely to follow through on an idea that would lose them votes (again, whether it is good for the country or not).
Anyways, in this Minority government, with the two biggest parties having no strong/passionate opinion on the subject, it is a simply a matter of who speaks loudest. In the absence of public resistance a DMCA could sleepwalk through Parliament on the basis that it meets our treaty obligations and protects the media industry. However if enough people were to protest a government sensitive to getting popular vote would drop it more easily. Also, if lawyers and judges suggest ther
Geist is an alarmist nutter, and an attention-whore. His "interpretation" of the provisions in this bill should be taken with a grain of salt.
These stories are free but worth money.
That's the beauty of Canada. This law will never pass. In fact I'd suggest that's the purpose behind the strictness of the law, to ensure it doesn't get passed and therefore everything stays the same. We've got a formula and we're using it. Maybe it's like a company that's being forced into making children's toys and they don't want to, so they always propose something absurd like the nuclear happy fun ball with pins and needles ... and their suggestions always get turned down. It's awesome.
Crap!Scratch running to Canada next election http://xkcd.com/180/
You can send letters to senators and MPs for free (no stamps required) if you address your letters to them at the federal Parliament in Ottawa.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
In other news, the popular website Slashdot.org was sued today by the Canadian government for mentioning a new draconian copyright law proposal. Under the article, it is no longer fair use to mention anything anyone else has made, said, or put into print ever.
What? Now we're being sued for reporting it? Aww fuck
We can't comply with kyoto, its not possible. There is no way to reduce our emissions that much without completely destroying the economy. Or would you be ok with completely shutting down the entire oil and automotive industries in Canada? That should work out nicely huh?
And Mulroney was ACCUSED (and despite investigation, there was no evidence to support the accusation) of TAKING money, not giving it to friends. Try to pay more attention so you don't end up looking like such an idiot.
"In Germany, whack jobs like Scientologists are actually -banned-."
You say that like its somehow a bad thing.
Kevin Smith on Prince
+1 Funny, not informative. RTFA that is linked. It's satire.
There's more truth in that satire than I've seen in any newspaper.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Wait a second on this idea that "Canada" signed a WIPO treaty. In actual fact, it was minions of a particular administration who decided to sign this treaty, with the usual avoidance of democratic process that signing international treaties entails these days, much to the disgrace of national governments everywhere. Think about this. As an individual, how often do you personally sign a legal contract, text to be supplied later, to the convenience of other parties? Yet apparently our government feels quite comfortable signing in this manner on our behalf.
There is no possible interpretation of democratic process in which the rights of a nation can be signed away *prior* to disclosing to the citizens of the country the precise implementation in law. Irregardless of any pretense that we, as a nation, have "already signed" this treaty, in fact, every signatory nation understands that you can't sign away fundamental democratic and constitutional rights, which includes the rights of the population to reject faulty implementations of those promises on an indefinite basis, if that needs to happen. Our minions in power seem determined to put this to the test.
In my view, what the signatory process actually promises is that the government will attempt to pass laws, within the constraints of our natiional legislative and constitutional process. In doing this much, our government is upholding its promise.
Now we need to vote this bill as presently written into the sewer, so that our government can continue their efforts to uphold their promise by doing a far better job on the next iteration. If it proves that the nation will not accept any legislative implementation of our treaty promise, then they need to go back to their treaty convention and apologize for misunderstanding the will of the people, suggest somes mean by which the failed treaty itself can be repaird, and perhaps refund in humility some expensive dinners obtained at the expense of the expensive suits of the MPAA.
I drew my own opinions a long time ago, when my native country voted the Torries in in the first place. I said that Harper was Bush Jr., but didn't have the power backing him that Bush does, and that he couldn't do any real significant damage. I also feel this bill will be defeated.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
What about the across the board blank media tax you guys have up there? I thought that was meant to compensate for any piracy that goes on.
Also, one thing I really envied about Canadian copyright law was your ability to make copies on a limited basis for friends and families.
This really sucks, I hope it doesn't become law. Even it it means you can no longer rub our nose in the DMCA. Actually, I kid. I welcome the good natured ribbing from our neighbors to the north.
Wow! If Canada keeps this up, we might have to change the "In Soviet Russia" meme to a "In Federal Canada" meme!
Actually, it's a common tactic, especially in a weak minority government as the case in Canada at the moment.
Suppose you want Law X (because of some strong lobby), but you know know that the opposition (especially a discredited opposition that wants to win some points) will not allow Law X. How do you get your law passed?
Step 1. Propose Law X+Y+Z+W where Y, Z, and W are unacceptable to everyone, including you.
Step 2. The opposition will jump on it and demand it be changed.
Step 3. You debate or form "a royal commission" which ends up stripping the draconian Y, Z, and W provisions buy leave the milder Law X that you wanted as a "fair compromise".
Step 4. The opposition gets their bone, and you get credit for being reasonable (after all, you gave up so many provisions) without sacrificing your principles (Law X),
Step 5. The politicians are happy, and the rest of us suffer.
The only way to counteract this tactic is for the opposition to propose an "anti-X+Y+Z+W" amendment to the law you proposed which also has strong lobby and attempts to liberalize the status quo in a way that no sane person would accept. Debate happens and the end result is that nothing changes because "the status quo is the best compromise" and both sides claim victory for defending the public from "the radicals on the other side".
Unfortunately, I don't know anyone in the opposition that has the backbone to suggest an "anti-X+Y+Z+W" amendment.
The other thing to remember is that we have a minority government. It would be fun if this bill failed in the commons and brought down the government forcing an election. Not sure anyone would want to fight an election over this.
As described in Geist's post, the bill would outlaw VCRs.
I don't think that is actually likely, and Geist's track record for inflating hysterical claims makes me even more dubious.
To be fair, though, I'm at work and pretty busy so I haven't yet browsed the actual text of the proposal.
These stories are free but worth money.
Welcome to Canada
This is the country that read 1984 and decided it was a reference manual.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Rang true then, rings true today.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Tagging Funny as Informative.
I hear that the RIAA has 33,111,100 pre-litigation letters ready to send to every Canadian citizen. The MPAA is also expected to seize all Canadian owned camcorders because you know we ALL tape movies in movie theater. They are just waiting for this bill to pass. We're just a big bunch of happy criminals.
If the corporations want greater protections for their IP, then what is to be done? I say classify IP derived royalty income as different than tangible product or service sales income, wage income or capital gains. They cannot have it both ways a state of society for the protection of property and a state of nature for the fruit thereof to not be properly taxed.
For Heaven's sake, make that border mean something other than the need to produce a passport! stand up and say "Hey we're Canada. We'll protect your IP but it's going to cost you."
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
Let's look at the text of the treaty, shall we?
Does that sound like the DMCA to you? Because it doesn't to me. There is tremendous flexibility in how a government might enact such protections. An "adequate" law might simply forbid circumvention of "effective" DRM (is any DRM effective?) for the purpose of copyright infringement. Circumvention for fair use, fair dealing, watching DVDs on Linux, etc. could still be permitted.
But the DMCA went far, far beyond this. We are hearing reports the Canadian law will do likewise. Why? Because the US Amabassador, the US trade representative, the RIAA and Hollywood - all American organizations - have been placing tremendous pressure on Canadian politicians.
Get a grip. The Berne Convention, mentioned above, was signed in 1886. The United States waited until 1989 to implement it. That's an interval of 103 years, in case you think I made a typo.
Furthermore, it's utterly dishonest to put words in someone's mouth. The person you are responding to criticized Canada for "mirroring American political issues". Not a word about imperialism, international law, or the evil of Bush - not one criticism of the United States. Yet you fabricate a scenario - "If the US ignored an international treaty", and then accuse someone else of whatever response you have concocted for them: "you'd be on here jumping up and down about how evil American & Bush are"). Utterly dishonest.
As described in Geist's post, the bill would outlaw VCRs.
After sitting through another insulting pre-movie commercial, nothing would surprise me anymore:
Image of a prison security camera monitoring an imate pacing his cell. Commentary (paraphrased): "he camcordered a movie, now the justice system gets to camcorder him for 10 years".
That is now actual law. With rather scary commercials to back this up. People can seriously be put in PRISON for 10 years, for recording a movie. And the rest of us get to be called potential criminals after we've just paid our $15.
And you think we're being alarmist and melodramatic? How extreme do these measures have to get? The fact that this is even being discussed outside the confines of a dystopian sci-fi novel should make you seriously afraid.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
[Shakes Fist]DAMN THOSE NEOCONS!
Oh, right...the world isn't quite so simple is it?
There are a couple of rather significant flaws with your naive, juvenile view of Canadian politics-
a) The Conservative government is a minority government. Legislation doesn't pass unless it passes with a majority, which the conservatives cannot accomplish themselves.
b) Stringent, DCMA-style copyright regulations have been in the works for years -- yeah, back in the Liberal era. You can bet the Liberals will support this, because they basically authored it.
The next time your knee starts jerking to blame everything you perceive as negative on Stephen Harper, try to get some semblance of facts.
yawn
The Parliament posts its order of business .. here:
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Pub=status&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=2
This supposed "Super-DMCA" is nowhere on the list of house or private members bills.
The government never gets through its order of business anyways, so if this thing is supposed
to get tacked onto the end of the list at some future date, it's unlikely to even
get a reading during this session of parliament.
Sure smells like fear-mongering, rather than anything serious..
I worry that the entire concept of Public Domain will eventually be written out of copyright law, and exclusive rights to existing Public Domain works, such as The Bible, Huckleberry Finn, and The Wizard of Oz, will be auctioned off to the six mega-media conglomerates.
It sounds insane, but have you looked at the laws being pushed through the US Congress these days? They're little more than corporate wish lists written in legalese.
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
That's not quite right. I suspect the real strategy is to get every subsequent government to enforce laws that are incrementally stronger than what is required by WIPO. Once the first cycle of legislation is complete, it can start over again with the first lot.
But you know what, I'm far more saddened than angered about this. What can I possibly do, when my government is passing legislation that is written by corporations from another country...
I think the real problem is the WTO. They are unelected, and apparently unaccountable, yet they draft treaties that affect hundreds of millions of people who had no say in any of it...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Hurray for the revolution. When (outdated/corrupted) law stops following common sense, people start willfully violating it.
Actually, he's right. Despite the assertion of the original post, the details of the upcoming bill are NOT known in detail yet except for some vague strokes described by ministers, and his assertions about the content of it are entirely speculation.
I don't know about the other remarks, but I am pretty damn sure that any introduction of this law without a parody exemption would be quickly struck down in the courts, as it would be a blatant violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically, "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication" - and I have a hard time believing that even Harper would have the gall to try to use the notwithstanding clause on this bill.
Pedantic question: Where in Ottawa do you live so that walking to the Parliament Building is *downhill*? Otherwise, go get 'em! (But don't be rude.)
..so if you reside in Canada and own TiVo, a VCR, or even an audio tape recorder, you go to jail? That's utterly preposterous and I'd wager it's utterly unenforcable, too. What would they expect people to do, throw all these devices in the trash? Did the Canadian government get time-warped back to the 1940's or something?
Not Ottowa; Edmonton. The Alberta Legislature Building is just down the hill from where I work. Very convenient if I ever need to actually go there. I may just visit again anyways because the legislature is visited with song thanks to choirs and carollers around the Christmas holidays.
Nothing quite like stepping into the bizzaro world of Canadian politics with a real smile on your face.
Starkle, starkle, little twink.
That's C-60. It's been defeated.
The new bill hasn't been read yet.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
WHAT new law?
This hasn't even been tabled yet. There is a minority government in power; the opposition can shoot down anything it wants and there's nothing the government can do about it. It hasn't got to second reading, it hasn't got to the Senate, it's pure speculation at worst and in need of some rather improbable help at best. Most of the bills this government tabled in the last session (a year ago) died on the order paper (means nothing happened and can ever happen with them).
Sorry, I'm calling you on this.
BULLSHIT
I hope this law gets passed. The sooner majority opinion on copyright law turns sour the better.
The government of Canada is preparing to attempt to bring...
Preparing to attempt to bring? Wooooahhh there Johnny Canuck, slow down! What's with all your preparing? What do you think this is, Star Trek?
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
I saw the link and decided that I should at least write my MP. However after some digging I've yet to find the actual bill.
I'm not going to talk out of my ass because someone said that something wicked this way comes. I want to read it and find out if it is true. I guess I'll need to wait a few days for the actual bill to be presented then make the choice if I support it or not.
Time shifting, personal backups, and moving media from one form that I own to work with another device that I own are things that I consider reasonable and will do what I can to defend.
Mulroney, and Schrieber.
Depending on how this turns out (and whether or not Schrieber really has the dirt to fry Mulroney, or if it was all just a bluff), the Liberals might decide to bring down the government before the spring budget.
That is, if Stephan Dion can manage to locate his testicles...
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
What timing.
The current government in Canada is getting pretty good at pulling the wool over the public's eyes under the guise of modernizing technology laws in harmony with the US. Yesterday they announced that part of the AWS spectrum auction would be "reserved" for new bidders. This successfully convinced the public and media that they were finally going to encourage competition in one of the most medieval wireless markets in the world. Yay, if Verizon can become open, so can Bell/Telus/Rogers and its bitch, Fido!
Unfortunately, the truth is that due to Canadian ownership laws, the only entities capable of starting an entirely new wireless network from scratch are the likes of cablecos (Quebecor/Videotron) ... as if that's going to bring any of the openness and innovation we really need.
The bottom line is that Harper's government, through the Canadian DMCA or the wireless auction or anything else, is simply out to protect the same old sheltered brats of Canadian big business -- the ones whose lack of innovation render them internationally uncompetitive.
While the US and Australia seem posed to move forward in the next 5 years, unfortunately Canada is in for a slide backwards.
Was that really the will of the Canadian people? Sometimes I wonder...Cory Doctorow had a line about how "The United States traded its manufacturing sector's health for its entertainment industry, hoping that Police Academy sequels could take the place of the rust belt. The United States bet wrong."
http://informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199903173&pgno=1&queryText=
Basically, ill-informed lawmakers in the US got tricked into believing that the declining manufacturing sector could be replaced by movies/software/music.
Ludicrous, of course, as any modern economist could tell you now, but it wasn't obvious to lawmakers in the 90's.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
You see it all goes back to Trudeau and that darn Charter of Rights and Freedom's. It keeps stomping laws like this. And the great thing about the charter is that it really really hard to change.
So, step one, find clauses in new law that are contrary to the charter.
Step two, bye-bye new law.
Or better yet, it is a minority Government. Try getting one of the other party's to agree.
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
This must not make it into law.
lets start the revolution today!
every Canadian, get out your guns and.....oh, crap.
get you mentos and diet coke rockets ready...
-I only code in BASIC.-
it completely conflicts with the "ipod tax" that just passed where media devices and are taxed to compensate for copyright losses- passing this copyright bill is like saying- we are going to tax people for the fact that people are running stop signs and getting tickets since it costs us $ to have the cops give tickets.
how are you supposed to tax a public for activities that are illegal?
The RCMP may say they're not going to enforce it, but
an arrest was made yesterday in Montreal.
Mind you, the details sound suspicious: there were
police at every door of the theatre, and the person
accused had supposedly set up a tripod in the aisle.
It may have been a put-up job.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
If you want to let the Minister of Canadian Heritage know this is a bad idea here's where you can contact her
http://www.pch.gc.ca/pc-ch/min/verner/contact/index_e.cfm
Let her know you will voting against them at the next election if this is passed.
AK
There is still hope that the Internet can slay Copyright... I hope.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I'm not sure I understand your complaint. Is it that the grandparent didn't justly pan the Liberals as strongly as the Stephen Harper Conservative Party?
Is Harper off the hook because his government is as filled with lobbyist c***suckers, as Martin's was?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.