Canadian DMCA Won't Include Consumer Rights

An anonymous reader writes "As protests mount over the Canadian DMCA, law professor Michael Geist is now reporting that the government plans to delay addressing fair use and consumer copyright concerns such as the blank media tax for years. While the U.S. copyright lobby gets their DMCA, consumers will get a panel to eventually consider possible changes to the law. Many Canadians are responding today with a mass phone-in to Industry Minister Jim Prentice to protest the policy plans."

Comments

Re:FIRST TROUT!

[snowraver1]

I'm going to shamelessly post after the first comment in order to get this to the top of the pile. In addition to writing letters to MPs (or emailing, which is a waste of time IMHO) this weekend there happens to be an open house at Mr Prentice's office (in Calgary) tomorrow, Saturday, December 7th from 1:00 - 3:00.

I plan on attending and srongly urge any fellow Calgarians to come to the open house.

Sent to my MP, and the two ministers

[SKorvus]

Honourable Ministers and Member Jim Prentice, Josée Verner, and Hedy Fry:

I am writing as a resident of Vancouver and citizen of Canada.

I would like to express my strong opposition to the changes to Canadian copyright law being proposed.

Canadian laws must work for the benefit of all Canadians. Not for specific industries at the expense of everyday citizens, and especially not foreign-owned corporations.

Artists, musicians, filmmakers and performers have a right to profit from their creations. But digital technology and the Internet have revolutionized the production and distribution of media, rendering obsolete the physical products around which copyrighted works have been based in the past.

The burden is on publishers and creators to innovate and find ways to profit from their works that are acceptable to consumers and consistent with a world in which sharing media is free of cost and effort. It should not be the Government of Canada's role to prop up antiquated business models or forcibly subsidize industries that are unable to adapt to 21st Century realities. Crippling technology and placing onerous and chilling restrictions on the ability of citizens to communicate does not serve the public interest.

I am concerned that this new bill to change copyright law will favour industry and lacks any meaningful input from consumer groups or experts on modern copyright law such as Dr. Michael Geist (U of O). Any bill should consider first the rights and interests of the Canadian public and consumers, before US lobby groups or international bodies.

In the words of Canadian science-fiction author and writer Cory Doctorow, "The US's approach to enforcing copyright in the digital age has resulted in 20,000 lawsuits against music fans, technology companies being sued out of existence for making new multi-purpose tools, and has not put one penny into the pocket of an artist or reduced downloading one bit. The USA stepped into uncharted territory in 1998 with the DMCA and fell off a cliff -- that was reckless, but following them off the cliff is insane."

Thank-you.

Re:FIRST TROUT!

[snowraver1]

Sorry forgot the address. Also remember to bring your donation to the food bank! You don't want to look like a bastard =)

1318 Centre Street NE, Suite 105, Calgary, AB

Website here: http://jimprentice.ca/

Why Canada's Copyright Revision is Bad

[Geof]

In order to stop ordinary people from violating copyright, companies have encoded content (particularly music and film) so that it requires special software to access. The software embeds rules determining what access is permitted and what access is not. Unlike copyright, which is interpreted by human beings, these rules are enforced by a machine. This law makes it illegal to circumvent the machine's determination.

But the machine is inflexible. It doesn't know whether it's ok for a student to copy a journal article, for a researcher to look for security or privacy flaws, for a Microsoft customer to play music on an iPod. So the software prevents activities which are otherwise perfectly legitimate and legal. Where copyright grants control over some uses of a work, this technology (DRM) grants control over all uses. And the U.S. version of this law, the DMCA, by banning all circumvention regardless of the purpose, makes that control inviolable.

That's the first problem.

The second problem is that to decode the content, this software must be present in every device that plays it back. It's in your cell phone. It's in your DVD player. It's in your computer. In order for the law to be effective, it forbids you to interfere with the operation of the devices you own. It becomes illegal to unlock your cell phone to use it with a different wireless provider. It becomes illegal to play DVDs on operating systems other than those made by Apple and Microsoft. The only one who can determine what your devices can and can't do is someone else. You lose control of your own property.

But that's not all.

Access must only be given to the right people (companies that make the technology - DVD players, operating systems, etc.) but not to the wrong people (you and me). Who decides? The answer must be a single company or organization. They make the rules about who can play back content - and who can encode content too. You can't publish protected music for the iPod without Apple's permission. You can't make a device to play it back without Apple's permission either. These companies and organizations have tremendous monopoly power. Control of the content requires control of the technology (and of our property), which becomes control of the market.

That control does not lie with artists, authors or musicians. In fact, because the technology is primarily American, it doesn't lie with Canadians at all. This law would place Canadian innovation and Canadian culture in a position of dependency relative to the United States.

That's only the part of the law we know about. There will be more.

Oh yes, I should mention - the copy prevention mechanisms don't work. They might stop you and me from making legitimate use of material, but they don't stop the serious pirates from profiting off someone else's work - after which ordinary folks can use those pirated copies, which, because they are digital, are perfect. This raises the question: are these technologies and laws really meant to stop piracy - are they really meant to benefit creators - or are they intended to consolidate the power of the monopoly and cartel positions of certain publishers and technology companies?