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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?
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 Even if your country already has a DMCA-like law, you can still fight for it or certain provisions of it to be repealed.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?
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).
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.
That does it! I'm moving to... oh wait
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?
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?
Does this mean Weird Al will be banned from performing in Canada?
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
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!
This bill has been a long time coming, and the priorities of the current government are well-established. It isn't the first time we've been down this road (Bill C-60). New anti-camcording legislation was adopted at warp speed earlier this year, despite questions about the necessity. Copyright reform was specifically mentioned in the Speech from the Throne earlier this year. Plus rumours are a-plenty on this from sources all around Ottawa, not just Prof. Geist.
... - all in agreement that this is the likely direction the government will take, and that the effects will be disastrous for user rights. This will be nothing short of a complete sell-out to American special interest groups (RIAA, Hollywood, MPAA...)
Boing Boing, Excess Copyright, Centre for Intellectual Property Policy, Digital Copyright Canada,
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..
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