Slashdot Mirror
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."
...the more content that slips through your fingers.
(apologies to Lucas, et. al.)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Use all means necessary to prevent this sort of behavior from becoming acceptable (i.e. "just the way things are") in Canada. Support independent recording artists and smaller labels who don't engage in draconian contract measures. Don't buy the mass-produced, pop culture oriented crap that's on sale at your local Huge Media Outlet. All you're doing is feeding the legal budget of the lobbying arms of major recording labels.
Support other creative artists who choose to license their work under Creative Commons style licenses. My personal policy for one site I manage is that all article content must be CC licensed.
Most importantly, tell people about your views. Ordinary people on the street. People you work with. Anybody, everybody. You enjoy a system of government where you're allowed to speak your mind... that's sort of a "use it or lose it" proposition in my opinion.
Does this mean you should stop contacting your elected officials. Hell, no. But take your personal, proactive action of your own instead of just waiting around for your elected leadership to make good decisions for you.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I keep hearing about how wonderful Canada is, compared to their neighbor to the south, and then stuff like this happens which seems to show no regard for the common citizen at all!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
High-ranking means he kissed a lot of ass to get there, so he'll be damned if he steps on any toes.
This isn't surprising. This is the sort of tripe that we should come to expect from those who label themselves the "Conservative" Party of Canada. As any political observer can plainly see, the current Canadian government in almost no way upholds true conservative values.
For instance, all real conservatives value the rights of the individual over rights of the corporation. Although certain judicial precedent may suggest that corporations should be afforded the same rights as individuals, that clearly is nothing but a legal perversion of reality. Yet here we have the Conservative Party of Canada taking a stance that is completely contradictory to true conservative beliefs, with them supporting non-Canadian corporate interests rather than the interests of the Canadian citizenry.
Real conservatives also firmly believe in avoiding this sort of regulation. Information is naturally meant to be distributed and communicated. And so those who hold conservative views realize this, and strive to make such communication as effective as possible. That's where true economic benefits lie, in the widespread dispersal of information.
So those Canadians who truly are conservatives, please vote for a party other than the so-called "Conservative" Party of Canada in future elections. They just aren't conservative in any way.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but isn't it quite common in Canada to deliberately create a law proposal so bad it won't pass as that is some times easier than opposing it? I.e, if politics is such that you can't officially oppose something, then you just create a stooge proposal which is doomed to fail instead. At least that's what a Canadian friend of me claimed, so I figured maybe this is a bit like that? Of course I could be wrong, I don't really know enough about Canada to be sure.
In Canada there are only two kinds of elected officials: The Prime Minister and everyone else. Only one of those has any power. It's always been a problem, but it's been ten times worse with this government.
In Canada, we have a semi-hidden theocracy of Steven Harper (the prime minister). Anyone that does not agree with him, is his enemy. Even in his own party.
:(.
:( Where are you Reform???!
:)
When some MP from maritime wanted a better deal for his area than was being offered (and the provincial gov't there wanted it as well), Harper threw him out of the party. Then under pressure, did the exact deal that MP wanted. When asked if the MP that was thrown out would be allowed to rejoin the party, Harper essentially said that he will *never* be part of his party ever again.
Or, he was saying that gov't would be accountable to its people and all other stuff, BS as it turns out. The day after he got a *minority*, he *appointed* a *non-elected* person to Senate *AND* into his cabinet!!! No one from the Conservative party disagreed even the former Reformers - quite sad.
Or, he said that global warming is not real. Then when public sentiment changed, so did he and now he proclaims that his party will somehow fit it now and that is a serious problem. Major flip-flopping there too. No one disagreed on that magic 1984-style switch.
Or, let's help the poor by cutting GST but screwing them with income taxes. Poor older people on fixed income are probably hardest hit here. Instead of drastic cuts in GST, he should have cut income taxes, but I guess it looks better if you pay $0.02 less on cup of coffee than $100 on a paycheck. The only people that disagreed were the conservatives - none were MPs.
One can go on and on here. While Liberals where in power, he said that Canada betrayed US by not going with the 2003 invasion (something that US didn't even want anyway). Now he said he never supported that. Essentially, Harper to Canada is like Bush to US. You disagree with him, and you are the enemy. He is always right. The only thing saving his butt right now is the giant surpluses that started when Paul Martin was the finance minister (good finance minister, very bad prime minister
So essentially, high ranking or low ranking in Harper gov't means nothing. You have to follow the Harper dogma or you'll be kicked out. Any criticism is NOT tolerated.
Will this DMCA pass? Depends. Depends if it gets a vote and that depends only if Harper wants it passed. If he does, it will go to a vote no matter what the Justice minister thinks. The only ones that can stop him are the opposition parties (its minority gov't) - fortunately Liberals are aiming for an election soon so it may be more effective trying to prod their Justice critic over this (or maybe even Dion?) than the Conservatives.
I would categorize my self as a definite fiscal conservative, but Harper is definitely NOT a conservative. He's as much of a conservative as Bush is, which is kind of sad.
PS. If you are not Canadian, this post probably has some references you do not understand. That is OK
I doubt the bill, at least as it currently stands, will ever become law.
First, I would be surprised if the bill even makes it out of committee because the minority Conservatives have to beg, borrow and steal support from any and all parties for any bill to become law; they are effectively politically neutered. This has created some rather unique partnerships over the last year, with the Conservatives finding support for some bills from such ideological enemies as the left wing NDP and the separationist Bloc Quebecois. The current Parliament has been limping along like this for too long and a political showdown is coming in the form of an election. The problem is the only other party that can challenge the Conservatives, the Liberals, are laboring under an ineffective leader, an essentially non-existent platform and a divided and disorganized membership.
Second, even without the dagger of a potential election hanging over it, this legislation will almost certainly be amended, picked apart and thoroughly scrutinized by the opposition and other parties looking to embarrass the Conservatives or score political points. This is where public furor will have the most effect. If the public and affected parties can hammer home the reality of what this bill is proposing, it will leave the committee stage with amendments to the most egregious portions of the bill. Regardless, I can't think of a single piece of legislation the Conservatives have introduced since they took power that has not come back from committee without amendments. They simply do not have the votes to overturn such changes.
I am not trying to be unrealistically optimistic here, but I just don't see a need to panic -- yet. Call, write or email your MP and let them know your opinions.
Good luck with that, you see where complaining and trying to 'vote different' got us down here south of your borders.. just more of the same.
Government is an institution larger then any one person, powered by the wealthy. It's really hard for the common man to make a difference.
But, you can still try.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
The bill was listed on the Parliamentary notice paper and scheduled to be introduced on Monday, though it may end up on Tuesday:
"Kyoto will have a tangible effect is foolish"
Kyoto was never meant to have much of an effect. It as meant as a first step. Nothing more.
The reason countries like China are ere excluded from caps under Kyoto is because they still emit MUCH less than developed nation on a per-capita basis.
That being said I believe that a properly implemented carbon tax is the best way to reduce emissions. How do you think we should deal with climate change?
"REAL concerns such as water pollution here in Canada are going unnoticed because of this nonsense."
Of course there are other environmental issues other than climate change and they need to be looked at as well, but that is no reason not to deal with climate change. As a voter I demand that politicians be able to deal with more than one issue at a time.
Just another crappy blog
Below is the text of what I've sent in (via email and CC: via letter mail) to Jim Prentice. Feel free to copy/modify it to suit your needs/views.
---
Hon. Jim Prentice:
I regret that I am unable to attend your open-house session tomorrow, 08 Dec 2007, in person; however, I would like to take this opportunity to express my concern over a proposed piece of legislation regarding Canadian copyright, namely the so-called "Canadian DMCA".
I work as an IT professional, however my background is in pure Computer Science. I often spend time performing security research. A Canadian version of the US DMCA legislation greatly concerns me -- one needs to look no further than the 'US v. Elcomsoft & Sklyarov' case to see why.
References: http://w2.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Elcomsoft/us_v_sklyarov_faq.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sklyarov
In this instance, legitimate security research was suppressed, and the researcher arrested at the will of a large corporation. Rather than acknowledge & fix the weaknesses in their product's security, Adobe chose to use the DMCA as a sledgehammer to suppress disclosure of information they did not like.
This has obvious chilling effects -- as an analogue, if a researcher were to find a weakness in the encryption used for e.g. online banking, is it reasonable to arrest the researcher rather than fix the weakness? To my mind, it is infinitely preferable to acknowledge, fix, and continuously improve security through legitimate research. Those with criminal intent will search for these weaknesses in any event -- it is much better to discover and fix the issues in a transparent manner. As the saying goes, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
Other kinds of DMCA abuse is well-documented and widespread. A few simple Google searches (e.g. "DMCA abuse") very quickly turn up many sources of information. This legislation has been used to suppress reviews or opinions which are negative towards large companies -- technically, these should be handled as a civil lawsuit for slander or libel (if they are, in fact, untrue); however, many large corporations choose to invoke a DMCA takedown notice instead, as it forces the content hoster to take down the material immediately, rather than waiting for a judgement from a court of law. It is important to note that it is *corporations* that send these takedown notices, not the courts. Under this model, 'justice' is a distant wish.
There was some research done in 2005 by the University of South Carolina which showed that 30% of DMCA takedown notices sent by corporations were improper, and even potentially illegal (unfortunately, the document seems to have been taken offline, or moved, but the previous URL was http://lawweb.usc.edu/news/releases/2005/legalFlaws.html). This is a stunningly high figure -- laws are traditionally written to ensure that there is an onus of proof before charges are filed, and that due legal process is followed. The rules of jurisprudence are critical to ensure the equitable operation of any society, but overly broad, overly powerful laws like the US DMCA allow companies with deep legal pockets to run rampant, and allows them to run a private campaign of fear and intimidation.
I wish to point out that I am not pro-piracy, but rather am opposed to legislation (and legislators) funded or supported by corporations. This is the very antithesis of a democracy, and is the current state in the US. Canada is already dangerously close to that abyss, and I do not wish to see us fall in completely.
*Original* creators of artistic works certainly desire to be paid for their works; it is for this reason that I attend live concerts, purchase T-s