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Geist's Fair Copyright for Canada Principles
An anonymous reader writes "Canadian law prof Michael Geist has been leading the charge against a Canadian DMCA including the creation of a Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group that now has more than 38,000 members. Having delayed the legislation, he now outlines what Canadians should be fighting for — more flexible fair dealing, a
balanced implementation of the WIPO Internet treaties, an ISP safe
harbor, and a modernized backup copy provision."
Canadian law prof Michael Geist has been leading the charge against a Canadian DMCA including the creation of a Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group that now has more than 38,000 members.
With Mr. Geist leading the discussion, I'm sure it's very spirited. The RIAA doesn't have a ghost of a chance.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
The U.S. has roughly ten times our population, so in terms of political significance it's more like 380,000 Americans. At one point we had about two people joining every minute. Imagine if every 3 seconds an American signed up to protest the DMCA.
Let's do it. Someone start this petition, and lets get the word out.
I want the audiance to make note that he solves the copyright issues via society sanctioned means. Not by hiding behind a geo/content-hiding P2P client in the safety of one's basement. Talk about mass rebellion all you want, it's people like him who will do far more to make things balanced (as opposed to the lopsided solution piracy presents).
Actually, 38,000 Canadians is, as of right now, is approx. 38,950 Americans. Enjoy our plummeting currency! :)
US companies funding US lobby groups to pressure the Canadian government into passing US-style DCMA laws? I think it's very relevant.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Several months ago there was an amendment to our copyright legislation (bill C-59) that made the "camcording" a criminal act....mostly due to the "rampant piracy" [insert blame canada here] reported by us corporations.
I couldn't find a date when that legislation was passed (introduced June 1, 2007 - does that mean passed as well?) but since then, only TWO people have been charged and the second was just a couple days ago.
Thank you MPAA (and canadian derivatives) for wasting my fucking tax dollars to prop up your business model. It's doing a swell job catching all the bad camcords going to the U.S.
Thank you Bev Oda and Maxime Bernier for representing foreign interests. traitors.
The previous Michael Geist /. link:
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/12/1150200
The bill will be introduced sometime in the next month or so. It is now considered, thanks to the efforts of everyone who called and wrote in December, a high profile bill.
A bill goes through 3 readings in the House of Commons. After the third it is passed to the Senate. After the first and second reading the bill may be sent to committee for hearings and modification. Now here is where it gets tricky. After the second reading the committee cannot make major changes to the bill, so if the proposed copyright legislation is really broken (and by all indications it will be) it needs to go to committee after first reading where it can be completely overhauled if need be.
But it is the discretion of the House leaders (each party) whether it goes to committee after the first reading.
So you all need to write the Leader, House Leader, and Industry critic of the opposition parties to tell them this bill must go to committee after the first reading so we have an opportunity for hearings and major revisions. Send copies to Stephen Harper, Jim Prentice (Minister of Industry), Josée Verner (Heritage), Peter Van Loan (Government House Leader), James Rajotte (head of the Industry committee) and your local MP while you are at it.
This might sound like a lot of work, but because of the minority government this is probably the best time for this legislation. Remember, committees are made up proportional to seats in the House, so the Government has to bargain with the opposition there too.
Serve Gonk.
By the terms of the DVD-CCA, properly-licensed DVD players **CANNOT** play DVDs from outside the region they are assigned. Of course, everyone has region-free DVD players, but it is absolutefuckingly sure that such players **WILL** be outlawed, as well as the DECSS software everyone loves and hates.
However, such a law will bit parliament big-time in the arse: Canada is a country of immigrants, much more so than the US, as there is no "Canadian melting pot" as immigrants are encouraged to retain their cultures*. Now, you are going to tell indians that they are not allowed to watch movies from India? Tell the Chinese that they are not allowed to watch movies from China? Tell the French that they are not allowed to watch movies from France? Tell english that they are not allowed to watch British movies? but they should only watch what Hollywood decides they should watch?
Like, yeah, this is going to go right well down with the plebe...
Better yet, in our Constitution is a Charter of Rights which does not gives a shit about commercial interests trampling the individual freedom of, say, watching a movie of one's choice.
* An old ploy to minorize the french by having immigrants consider them like yet another ethnic group (never mind that the french actually founded Canada as we know it almost half a millenium ago -- my ancestors were well established here when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth!).