Canadian DMCA Bill Withdrawn

ToriaUru writes to let us know that Michael Geist is reporting that the Canadian Minister of Industry will not be introducing the proposed Canadian Digital Millennium Copyright Act legislation as scheduled. That proposed legislation, discussed here a couple of weeks back, is now reaching Canada's mainstream press. Geist doesn't speculate on why the legislation is being withdrawn, but it could have something to do with the massive popular outcry against the proposal that Geist helped to orchestrate.

Comments

Monopolies...

[eldurbarn]

We live in a time when "the common man" is well aware that business monopolies have a solid, historical track record of abusing "the little guy".

Copyright is simply a government enforced monopoly: allowing the copyright holder to have a monopoly on that particular piece of IP.

Like many of you, I am also a producer of intellectual property. Unlike big business, however, I don't see the need for me to have a monopoly. I am more encouraged to produce when I cannot simply rest on my butt and earn money for work that I did years ago.

As a consumer of intellectual property (gads, how I hate that term!), I simply cannot see how it benefits me to let my government grant big companies a monopoly on what is rapidly becoming our common, shared culture.

Thank a minority government

[earthforce_1]

Thanks to the razor thin minority government that exists here right now, they cannot be arrogant and a few thousand determined people actually can make a difference. This is the way government should be - it should be scared of the people, not vice-versa. This plus an alert press ensures they do not dare try to slide a fast one under the table for well heeled friends. One massively unpopular bill could tip the scales against them and they damned well know it.

I don't live anywhere near Calgary, but I was one of the ones who (politely but firmly) e-mailed him with my objections to a Canadian DMCA and how C-60 loomed large in my mind last election.

If the current government can ignore the Kyoto accords, they sure as heck can choose to ignore WIPO as well.

Re:Thank a minority government

[Jester998]

I also sent an email (and sent a carbon copy via post ... hardcopy gets much more attention from politicians!). I don't live anywhere near Calgary either (Ottawa, in fact), but I definitely felt strongly enough about the issue to write to him.

Below is the text of what I sent:

--

Dear 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." hold very true here.

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