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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."
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.
that's what, about 85% of the US DMCA?
You haven't seen the latest exchange rate. It's actually a bit more than 100% of a US DMCA.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
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'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.
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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.
Live simply, that others may simply live. -Gandhi
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/
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
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.
No need to apologize. He went and turned into a money-grubbing asshat too.
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?