Canadians Battling Proposed Canadian DMCA

An anonymous reader writes "CTV reports on how Canadians are fighting back against the Canadian DMCA. Led by Michael Geist, the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group is nearing 90,000 members. There are local chapters, a YouTube contest, wikis, and people writing letters and organizing rallies against the copyright bill. Geist said, 'When you get tens of thousands of Canadians speaking out like this, there's big political risk for any political party who chooses to ignore it.'"

Comments

I guess this is what you'd call an...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh-valanche.

No Worries

[MightyMartian]

Prentice and the Tories don't need to worry about voters. I'm sure they've been paid handsomely by American media giants for their co-operation.

Re:No Worries

[Opportunist]

But that money only keeps rolling for as long as they have their finger on the button. Ya know, despite everything else, the final say in who gets to take the bribes is with the voters.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

The people with most money to run their campaign win, not the ones that please the most voters.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

That may be true in the US, but in Canada the general public seems to put a little more effort into elections than just voting for the person who has the most signs on front lawns.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

well its kinda hard to win an election if you don't have any voters, no matter how much money you have. If I were in an election and I said I was going to raise taxes by 50%, I doubt I would win even I had a few billion dollars to spend on a campaign. Sure, you're statement is true to some degree, but its not set in stone

Re:No Worries

[Kjella]

Well, they say you can't buy votes but that's not really true and you know it. Who cares if 2000 knowledgable voters get pissed at you if 5000 clueless voters vote for you instead with your new campaigning budget? It doesn't really matter where and why the vote comes from, a vote is as good as any other. People don't want to hear the truth, they want to hear how you'll make their lives so much better so it's tough to call someone on talking bullshit - even when they're not pimping some lobbyist agenda they are telling you sweet, sweet lies.

Re:No Worries

[MightyMartian]

Really? We didn't even break through 70% of eligible voters showing up in the last election. In some parts of the country it was a lot less. Maybe Canadians are slightly less apathetic than their US counterparts, but only slightly.

Re:No Worries

[Nefarious Wheel]

And that worked exactly how well for Ross Perot?

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

The what on the what? Suppose the intent is the same but I really was thinking a different what on another what.

Re:No Worries

[outZider]

Really? Because I hear a lot about it, and then when you look at the hard data, you guys are just as short sited as we are.

You also don't do votes for 75% of the positions we do.

Re:No Worries

[mixmatch]

What makes you think that the 70% that vote is not representative of 100% of the voting populace? Or, for that matter, that the 30% that did not vote really had anything to contribute to the voting pool. Perhaps the message from voting advocates should not be, "You have an obligation to vote, so go vote." I would think a more appropriate message would be, "We would like for everyone to inform themselves and make an educated decision about the candidates, but if you are unable to do so, by all means DON'T VOTE."

Re:No Worries

[Malekin]

Why should the educated and informed be the only ones represented in parliament? The actions of the government affect the bright and the dumb. You (and I) may think there's a section of the population whose votes we'd be better off without, but the solution is not to discourage them from voting but to encourage them to raise their political awareness. The heart of a representative democracy is every person getting a vote.

When you have compulsory voting politicians are forced to address issues that matter to their electorate (rather than just the subset who are voters) and people who otherwise would cynically ignore elections are forced to pay attention to their choices and how they will be affected by them.

Re:No Worries

[Sepper]

The English-speaking media had a lot of editorials on the issues (but no 6 O'clock news stories about it)

The French-speaking media has been *very* quiet on the issue: I saw a 2 article written in 3 months. At least in both cases they gave equal time to Micheal Geist and CMPAA / CRIA

Nobody around me seems to care about the issue... Yet it will have a lot of very real consequences on own you can use stuff you own.

The sad thing is: this law is presented has the one that will stop illegal downloading... It might give more power to copyright distributors, but it won't truly stop P2P and such...

yet, to give more power to these corporations (not even copyright holders, we are talking about copyright distributors), they have to take away mine: I won't be able to do whatever I want with the stuff I bough.

Whatever I try to bring up this issue around me, I'm getting labeled as a pirate who just wants everything free, yet, I have nothing to do with this sort of behavior. I just want to be a criminal for trying to copy music for a DRM-covered CD to my unlocked Nokia N95. I paid for the damn CD, and I paid for the damn unlocked phone. It this too much too ask?

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

And who else would the Canadian public vote for?

Stephane Dion?

Baaaaaahahahahaha.

Re:No Worries

[Opportunist]

The problem is that the usual reaction is "oh, they can't do that!" when you inform people about it. They're just too used to being able to do what they did for decades, they can't even imagine that they suddenly can't do it anymore.

Of course there will be an outcry when you suddenly can't copy your CDs over to your MP3-player or your car stereo anymore and the suggested fix is to buy the song once again. Then people will complain that they ain't dumb to pay twice for what they already bought, but then it's too late.

Re:No Worries

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Prentice and the Tories don't need to worry about voters. I'm sure they've been paid handsomely by American media giants for their co-operation.

Yeah, that is, until they become unelectable and American media giants have no more use for them. Then, they are out of sponsors and out of a job.

Re:No Worries

[Atlantis-Rising]

You also don't do votes for 75% of the positions we do.

A fact that I am infinitely grateful for. Electing judges and district attorneys, for example, is pure madness.

Re:No Worries

[mrbcs]

You are obviously ignorant of Canadian politics. If we are pissed off enough, we do MAJOR damage. Examples:

1. William Davis, Tory premier of Ontario, who after giving full funding to Catholic schools, was tossed out of office after 40 years of consecutive Conservative rule.

2. Brian Mulroney, Ronny Reagans buddy, after introducing the Gouge and Screw Tax, had his MAJORITY government reduced to 2 seats in the next election.

These tories have been warned, enact this legislation and they will be destroyed politically. Harper won't be able to run for village mayor after we're through with him.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

My precise thoughts about encouraging everyone to vote, even if they have no clue about what they are voting on! The obligation should be to find out what they are voting on, what the likely actions of the proposals are, and THEN cast an educated vote.

Having people who don't have a clue is part of how we got gw bush.

Re:No Worries

[innocent_white_lamb]

We would like for everyone to inform themselves and make an educated decision about the candidates,
 
I like to think that I'm a reasonably well-informed and educated person. I take an interest (greater or lesser in a great many things, including politics and the world around us.
 
I have, in several elections, gone to the polling station, taken my ballot to the little booth and after unfolding it, I re-fold it and return it to the clerk for her to put into the ballot box. I vote, but I make no mark on the ballot at all if, in my opinion, no candidate is worthy of receiving my vote.
 
And I am Canadian.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

early 90s, forget the exact year, BC Social Credit party gets tossed out of power and the party itself destroyed.

Then the BC NDP party goes from a Majority goverment to having just a couple of seats after a series of scandals.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

>and people who otherwise would cynically ignore elections are forced to pay attention to their choices and how they will be affected by them.

Well, either that or we follow actual history of forced voting and find out they vote for the first person on the ballot, so we end up with these choices:

  - Politicians will change their names to start with the letter "A".
  - We randomly sort the names on the ballot, so it is random who gets all the donkey votes for the election
  - We have to give up on paper ballots entirely and go with Diebold-style machines that will "randomly" place a candidate in the first position so the donkey vote is statistically insignificant
  - Print each individual ballots randomly, thus guaranteeing a higher level of human error when counting the votes

None of these solutions are good, but that's what happens when you have a poor system.

Or we could forgo the donkey vote and stick with what we have right now. I like that option.

Re:No Worries

[ppanon]

Best solution: you place an invalid (but valid looking) name in the first position so that those people stupid enough to vote for an invalid randomly generated name don't have their votes count. Now if that name actually wins, that's tough. As a fall back plan, I would say fake a news report of the assassination or plane crash of the fake Pres/VP and say you have to redo the election. Or give it to the speaker of the House since at least s/he managed to get elected.

Re:No Worries

[mpe]

Perhaps the message from voting advocates should not be, "You have an obligation to vote, so go vote." I would think a more appropriate message would be, "We would like for everyone to inform themselves and make an educated decision about the candidates, but if you are unable to do so, by all means DON'T VOTE."

How do you know that an "educated decision..." does not equate to "none of the above"? It's perfectly possible to have a set of candidates (even with a large number of candidates) who do not represent the opinions of voters.

Re:No Worries

[gmack]

Actually in Canada politicians are not allowed to take donations from corporations and individuals are limited to small donations.

The problem here is not money it's the previous government signing a treaty that makes something like the DMCA a requirement and the US ambassador lobbying on behalf of the RIAA/MPAA threatening to damage Canada's economy with a trade war.

The other real problem is that Prentice doesn't have enough of a backbone.

Re:No Worries

[brainhum]

In other news, Lorem Ipsum was elected Prime Minister of Canada today by a landslide margin.

Re:No Worries

[Caged]

When you have compulsory voting politicians are forced to address issues that matter to their electorate (rather than just the subset who are voters) and people who otherwise would cynically ignore elections are forced to pay attention to their choices and how they will be affected by them.

Speaking from experience living in a country that has compulsory voting your opinion is incorrect. Just like non-compulsory voting you have blocs who are dedicated to one party or another and rarely change based on the issues raised at election. Indeed this steady bloc who are forced to vote makes it much harder for a seat to change hands as the candidate or party has to really tick off the electorate for those rusted-on supporters to change their mind and help tumble the incumbent out of power. (Also known as a protest vote). Hence with compulsory voting apart from the protest vote, the other way for change to occur is for the demographic of the electorate to change. Eg, for agricultural seats to acquire a more cosmpolitan community.

Non compulsory elections seem to be won by those who can encourage the largest number of people to get out there and vote.

I'm not sure which system is better.

Re:No Worries

[Nerdfest]

The latest polls I saw showed that Quebec is actually in favour of the DMCA as it stands, or at least it was in the last opinion poll that I saw. I'm not really sure why this is the case. A couple of (perhaps wildly inaccurate) guesses would be that it's because of poorer media coverage, or Prentice's Quebec connections.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not representative, because the decline in voter turnout is often more severe in certain groups. The most distinctive feature of recent declines is in youth voters (18-24 or so). It's awful, and worsening, which is not only bad for now, but bodes ill for the future. This is true in Canada and apparently in the U.S. Youth voters are therefore underrepresented compared to older voters.

It's the one thing where I bend my personal ethics and use my university classroom for political purposes: I encourage the students to vote, and I explain how and where they can vote (i.e., in Canada, they have the option of voting in their home constituency or the one in which they reside during school). I even remind them that if they need a ride to the polls, they can often get one from a candidate.

I don't talk about parties or anything like that, but I emphasize that if they want to have a voice and they want politicians to care about their issues, then they have to get off their behinds, become informed, and vote. I figure 15 minutes for a good cause is worthwhile in class as long as I'm politically neutral.

Anyway, having looked into it, you are wrong about the implication the decline in turnout leaves a residual amount of voters that is equally statistically representative as before. Youth are disengaging in droves, possibly because they think their contribution doesn't matter (the reasons are debatable -- see the above article).

I agree with your point that an uninformed "vote anyway" vote isn't really a solution, but the process starts with trying to convince people that their vote matters. Politicians do look at the gross statistics and think about where to focus their efforts, so a generally bad turnout in a particular group is inevitably going to bias their decisions.

Re:No Worries

[CastrTroy]

I agree. That's why we vote for people in the first place. So that they can represent us. I personally would find it quite time consuming to educate myself to the point where I could be comfortable voting for 20 different offices. Municipal, Provincial, and Federal are enough for me. I'm electing those people so they can run things, not so they can hold even more elections to get my opinion on a bunch of other stuff.

Re:No Worries

[danking]

I agree, I do stay informed but am not willing to vote for someone or some party that will harm me the least. Spoiling a ballot is an easy way to do this and a good way to show you do not support the methods of our democracy.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Brian Mulroney, Ronny Reagans buddy, after introducing the Gouge and Screw Tax, had his MAJORITY government reduced to 2 seats in the next election.

you really have no clue what you just said, do you?

Before Mr. Mulroney left office, the party which was in power was divided in to various new Cdn Political Parties. You had the Reform in the Western part of Canada, new members for the Green Party in Ontario, and the Bloc in Quebec.

All three parties, Reform, Green and Bloc were made of current (at the time) members of Torie Government.

The leader of the Bloc (at the time) was a cabinet minister for many years.

The torie vote was given to the person who once ran for the Tories, who was at the time running for the Reform, Bloc, or other.

Other factors were a very anti-Military feeling in Canada, along with 'Let's ban firearms for the sake of the children.', and 'Religion is the evil of all evils.' being advocated by the left at the time. The helicopter deal which Canada needed was canceled at a high cost to Canada.

The Liberals during that election stated many times as a promise to cancel the GST. What happen when they got into power? Was the GST canceled, no.

Allan Rock did more damage to Canada's Freedom by passing laws which gave the Police in Canada the power to do almost anything and everything they want. Currently, the Police in Canada do no need to get a warrant. In most cases they can search and seize, and than ask for a warrant 48 hours later.

And if you do not believe me about the laws Allan Rock passed, go and read them for yourself. Remember those laws came into effect by the Liberals in 1996.

Your posting should be marked as troll.

Re:No Worries

[Forseti]

And that worked exactly how well for Ross Perot?

It gave him 18.9% of the popular vote even though he was an independent in a highly two-party driven system? That was unheard of for the United States up to that point (and since)!

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

In USA, people are afraid of their government.
In Canada, the government is afraid of the people. :-)

Re:No Worries

[canuck57]

These tories have been warned, enact this legislation and they will be destroyed politically. Harper won't be able to run for village mayor after we're through with him.

But it does show in majority governments in Canada, they are term dictators. The senate is nothing more than old patronage buddies collecting big bucks to rubber stamp things. But fortunately we are in a minority government situation which makes the dictatorship more tenuous.

Re:No Worries

[Pig Hogger]

That may be true in the US, but in Canada the general public seems to put a little more effort into elections than just voting for the person who has the most signs on front lawns.

And on telephone poles; up here, signs can be erected on public property.

Re:No Worries

[Sj0]

I know we're Canadians and all, but not even WE can be taxed at 120%.

Re:No Worries

[Pig Hogger]

These tories have been warned, enact this legislation and they will be destroyed politically. Harper won't be able to run for village mayor after we're through with him.

Yeah, but in the meanwhile, they will have enacted it, and you can bet your arse the liberals won't scrap it afterwards. After all, they haven't scrapped the GST as they promised...

(The GST is a classic case of ideologic stupidity. What the government did was replace a hidden 12% tax with a visible 7% tax, but they so badly explained it that people got to hate it).

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

the funny thing is that most of the 'liberal' democratic candidates would probably have to join the conservative party if they were running in Canada (Hillary Clinton, for example).

Re:No Worries

[mrbcs]

It was also the arrogance of, "you may have thought that we were gouging and screwing you before, (because of hidden tax) now you'll KNOW when we are.

I also think that because of this issue and the fact that we now have the internet with which to organize ourselves, we may actually do something about these laws before they become law. As you stated, history has shown that it's far more difficult to remove a law than to fight a bill.

Prentice was pretty freaked out before Christmas when an impromptu protest was set up in this very forum. Over 40 people showed up at his office the very next day for an Open House and proceeded to quiz him on this bill and his intentions. They thought there was no opposition to this. The were wrong then, and they're wrong now.

Re:No Worries

[mpe]

Well, either that or we follow actual history of forced voting and find out they vote for the first person on the ballot, so we end up with these choices:

- Politicians will change their names to start with the letter "A".
- We randomly sort the names on the ballot, so it is random who gets all the donkey votes for the election
- We have to give up on paper ballots entirely and go with Diebold-style machines that will "randomly" place a candidate in the first position so the donkey vote is statistically insignificant
- Print each individual ballots randomly, thus guaranteeing a higher level of human error when counting the votes

There are other options. Including having the first "candidate" be "Abstain", "None of following", "Donkey", etc. As well as avoiding broken STV which requires a preference to be given for every candidate, even when the voter either dosn't care about some of the candidates or feels that some of them are unsuitable for the office in question.

Re:No Worries

[Jardine]

The problem here is not money it's the previous government signing a treaty that makes something like the DMCA a requirement and the US ambassador lobbying on behalf of the RIAA/MPAA threatening to damage Canada's economy with a trade war.

Just to be clear, parliament doesn't have to pass a DMCA-style bill. Signing the WIPO treaty is like dating, it's not a commitment to marriage. And even if they decide that they really do want to commit to complying with WIPO, most of the crappy parts of Bill C-61 aren't required under the treaty.

Re:No Worries

[Five Bucks!]

props

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what's funny.... the CDMA might suck, but it's no where near the level of GST suckage! Canadians aren't even paying attention to this... it's sad but true. 90,000 on a Facebook app. is crud, the last protest against the CDMA barely turned up 30 people on Parliament Hill.

Accept the CDMA... it's going to happen.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

A 70% turnout is only representative of the population if the 70% turning out are selected at random. Since self-selection is the major determinant of who does and doesn't vote. There is considerable room for selection bias.

Re:No Worries

[MightyMartian]

I've actually some talk of "None of the Above" as a choice, and if that gets the plurality of votes, then a new election has to be run with a different slate of candidates. In Canada, at least, one of the big flaws is that the political parties hold far too much power over individual candidates, and I think allowing the possibility that the chosen candidate might not only lose, but might actually lose to "None of the Above" might reduce the sometimes very unholy power that political parties hold over candidates.

Re:No Worries

[quacking duck]

But it does show in majority governments in Canada, they are term dictators. The senate is nothing more than old patronage buddies collecting big bucks to rubber stamp things. But fortunately we are in a minority government situation which makes the dictatorship more tenuous.

What's frightening is that despite their minority government status, they've been running around behaving like they have a majority.

Imagine the damage they could do if they truly did have a majority, and there was no chance of the opposition parties taking them down.

Re:No Worries

[MightyMartian]

The electorate could indeed keep voting for Conservative and the Liberal minority governments. This would have the effect of eventually bankrupting the major political parties (a good thing in my view) and might lead those parties to some pretty severe institutional changes.

The fact is that at the moment there seems equal odds of either party forming a minority government. There are simply no chance of either one getting a majority. What that likely means as far as this legislation is concerned is that if either the Bloc or the NDP decide they don't like it, it probably won't go through.

I have some suspicion, at least, that the whole thing was a stunt. Prentice and Harper know full well that no controversial legislation has a hope in hell of ever getting passed, particularly as all the major parties have increasingly itchy trigger fingers. This probably was nothing more than an attempt to con the US media giants into the belief that the Canadian government takes copyright "reform" seriously, with the full knowledge that the Opposition would, for purely political reasons, suddenly decide that this Canadian DMCA is bad. This is very ironic for the Liberals, as a lot of the groundwork of this bill was done while the Liberals were in power, but because they were reduced to a minority after Chretien was forced from office they didn't have the clout to pull it off. That situation has remained the same ever since.

The fact is that in a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy, a minority government that cannot form some sort of semi-permanent coalition can only remain in power by doing as little as possible. The Conservatives are in a position where they are a minority government with three left-of-center (to one degree or another) parties holding the plurality of votes, I'll be more scared if we get a Liberal minority government, because they'll form a coalition with the NDP, probably bribe over a few more centrist Conservatives and get themselves a functioning majority voting bloc, and will then happily sell us all down the river with some new version of this horrible copyright legislation.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget that in a minority government this bill will need the support of one or two other parties to pass. You'll want to save some of your bluster for them as well.

Re:No Worries

[mrbcs]

I think we're all (Canadians) secretly hoping that all the parties realize now that we can communicate and band together for a common purpose and put actual feet to these issues by showing up at demonstrations and writing letters.

Hopefully the government will see that we will become more active in politics and hold them accountable for selling us out, whatever the issue.

That's my pipe dream anyway.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

What about putting a NULL candidate in the first position?

Re:No Worries

[Curtman]

Why should the educated and informed be the only ones represented in parliament?

They need to be informed about what the hell the candidate is talking about, and or what they've done in the past. Voting for people because they have prettier signs, or because their parent/brother/cousin/neighbour votes that way, is the kind of thing we want to avoid.

Re:No Worries

[Curtman]

The sad thing is: this law is presented has the one that will stop illegal downloading.

I think the sad thing is, that it's already illegal to upload copies. They won't dare go after people for that yet though, because their straw man dies then, and they would be unable to push through their draconian copyright legislation.

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

And this kids, is the type of barely literate ape that the prior posters were referring to when they said "keep your stupid ass home inhaling paint fumes while those with functioning cerebral matter decide the best way forward for your country."

Personally, my solution to the problem of the above poster is a bullet to his/her head, but until that's legal I'll go with "keep your moronic ass home."

Re:No Worries

[Jorophose]

Doesn't hold true in Canada.

If Ontario and Quebec, or more likely the maritimes, can bring themselves to elect nothing but liberals it doesn't matter what happens in the rest of the country, it's bound to be liberal or minority.

Not to mention those 3000 "won" votes are likely to be spread out. And if not, well, wow, you might have won 1/384? seats. Or gotten 10 extra votes in every region.

Re:No Worries

[Tim C]

More to the point, judges, district attorneys, etc are supposed to uphold the law without favour, and without bowing to public pressure (just because the mob is baying for someone's blood doesn't make them guilty, for example)

If they have to worry about an impending (re)election, can they really be trusted to be impartial?

Re:No Worries

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to point out that voting is MANDATORY in Australia. Don't vote, get a $50 fine.

I think this is so you can't not vote, and then bitch about whichever party got into office.

print page

[A little Frenchie]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/20080817/copyright_crusade_080817/20080817/?hub=SciTech&subhub=PrintStory

Re:print page

[SleepyHappyDoc]

It was already on one page, karma whore.

Curse you Young People F***ing Movie!

[file_reaper]

I knew the title of that movie would just bring trouble!

SEE! See how things are turning out?!

Political Repurcussions

[mochan_s]

Does anyone know who in the US elected government caused the US DMCA to happen?

So, if even slashdot users can't remember who caused the original DMCA to happen, what hope is there that any Canadian politicians would be worried?

Re:Political Repurcussions

[master5o1]

I'm pretty sure there would be a list somewhere.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[Opportunist]

The problem is that this doesn't seem to have any escape path. Or rather, it doesn't matter what side you vote. The (new) Republicans are for big government and cracking down on whatever perceived crime exists, not to mention that "those intarwebs" and the uncontrolable spread of information, opinion and propaganda is usually not really something the new kind of Rep enjoys.

The Democrats otoh have traditionally good ties with Hollywood and the media.

In other words, you're fucked either way. The DMCA is on both sides' agenda.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[jacquesm]

That's because there really is only one side in US politics, the one with the money.

As long as TV advertising is the way to get voters this will not change.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[multisync]

Does anyone know who in the US elected government caused the US DMCA to happen?

I'm pretty sure there would be a list somewhere.

Actually, I believe the DMCA was voted on with something akin to a show of hands. In other words, no record of who voted for or against it. I don't have a citation right now, but if I find one I'll post it in a reply to this comment. It also seems to me it was brought in as an amendment to another bill, maybe a farm bill or something. I'm less sure about that.

It was very sneaky, if memory serves.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[multisync]

Actually, the wiki article on the DMCA says "Passed on October 12, 1998 by a unanimous vote in the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998" so I must have been mistaken. I thought I had heard something around the time of the MPAA vs 2600 case, but apparently not.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[iminplaya]

...signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998...

Well, that does it. I'm definitely not voting for Bill Clinton this November.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[ehintz]

Perhaps I can explain why you recall a level of sneaky-ness. At the time it got very little attention, as everyone was breathlessly awaiting more news about BC getting a blow job or diddling Monica with cigars... Certainly the dog and pony show drew attention away from the geeks crying foul.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah in Canada we don't have the broken system like the Americans. We have a good number of political parties to vote for.. Like the NDP, who you can bet your bottom dollar wouldn't support this bill. They're really anti-American.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't have just a two party government. Vote for the Green Party, or the White Elephat. Heck vote the Marajanna party if you want. Prove to them that they are not the only choices and that what they stand for matters.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[grcumb]

In other words, you're fucked either way. The DMCA is on both sides' agenda.

I don't entirely disagree with what you're saying, but it does bear mentioning that Lawrence Lessig endorses someone whom he thinks is worth supporting precisely because of his stance on technology issues:

read carefully what Net Neutrality for Obama is. There's no blanket ban on offering better service; the ban is on contracts that offer different terms to different providers for that better service. And there's no promise to police what's under the technical hood (beyond the commitment already articulated by Chairman Powell): This is a sensible and valuable Net Neutrality policy that shows a team keen to get it right -- which includes making it enforceable in an efficient way, even if not as radical as some possible friends would like.

Second, on the important: As you'll read, Obama has committed himself to a technology policy for government that could radically change how government works. The small part of that is simple efficiency -- the appointment with broad power of a CTO for the government, making the insanely backwards technology systems of government actually work.

But the big part of this is a commitment to making data about the government (as well as government data) publicly available in standard machine readable formats. The promise isn't just the naive promise that government websites will work better and reveal more. It is the really powerful promise to feed the data necessary for the Sunlights and the Maplights of the world to make government work better. Atomize (or RSS-ify) government data (votes, contributions, Members of Congress's calendars) and you enable the rest of us to make clear the economy of influence that is Washington.

I'm not trying to Appeal to Authority here. What I'm saying is that if you perform a bit of analysis, you will find that not all presidential candidates are created equal where technology matters are concerned.

But here's the part where I agree with you: The two major parties are the ones who craft the law, and there's no guarantee that they'll agree with their president on issues such as these.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[bentcd]

That's because there really is only one side in US politics, the one with the money.

As long as TV advertising is the way to get voters this will not change.

TV advertising is unlikely to be the culprit. After all, all you need to get on the TV is money and if you have some pressing political agenda that is shared by a significant proportion of the electorate then you will be able to raise the money.

More likely, it's the election system itself that is to blame. The wide-spread use of winner takes all type elections for the highest federal positions inevitably results in a polarized two-party system wherein new parties stand absolutely no chance of making a dent and anyone who wants to rise to power within one of the two existing parties generally need to cozy up with those parties' sponsors first. Stagnation follows, to the extent that the two parties end up looking pretty much exactly the same to an outside observer.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[jacquesm]

Those are definitely factors, but the reason I see TV advertising as one of the major problems is that it gives money a huge say in determining the outcome of elections.

If that were not the case then other interests (such as, 'the people') would be higher on the agenda. Now the most important thing is to raise funds.

In quite a few other countries corporate donations to political parties are strictly forbidden, in fact they are considered a crime.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[bentcd]

Those are definitely factors, but the reason I see TV advertising as one of the major problems is that it gives money a huge say in determining the outcome of elections.

If that were not the case then other interests (such as, 'the people') would be higher on the agenda. Now the most important thing is to raise funds.

In quite a few other countries corporate donations to political parties are strictly forbidden, in fact they are considered a crime.

I still think that TV is a red herring though, even if it may certainly exacerbate the issue. I didn't touch upon this earlier, but the disproportionate effect of wealthy lobbying groups on politicians can be a serious problem and especially so in a two-party system. The solution for this problem is more likely, as you suggest, to be the curtailing of corporate sponsorship of politicians rather than to disallow political advertising on TV.

(Not that I'm in favor of political advertising on TV but the reason for that is unrelated to this debate - I just dislike advertising in general.)

Re:Political Repurcussions

[jacquesm]

Ok, I see what you mean now.

Your point is that in the absence of TV advertising the lobbyists would continue in much the same way they do today, simply by buying 'favours'.

The fact that there are only two parties and that they both have pretty much the same political views and the same contacts with lobbyists means that there is no support to change the situation because whoever is in power will have their hands dirty.

So, while we're on the reform train, what would you propose be changed besides financing in order to clean up the mess we're in ?

I realize /. is US centric and I'm in Europe, but I think the world is interconnected in so many ways today that change in one part of the world can profoundly influence the rest of it.

A cleaned up political system in any large or influential country would benefit the world greatly, it's not as if we do not have the tools or the awareness to achieve it, there just doesn't seem to be a need felt to make it happen. In my surroundings the few people that are politically active are pretty extreme, the rest simply doesn't care. They're so sick and tired of politics that it borders on apathy and I really don't see what you could do to re-engage them.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[bentcd]

Your point is that in the absence of TV advertising the lobbyists would continue in much the same way they do today, simply by buying 'favours'.

That, and there's always other advertising. It may be less effective but it is also less expensive so you can do more of it.

So, while we're on the reform train, what would you propose be changed besides financing in order to clean up the mess we're in ?

Well, the ones I've mentioned are probably the big ones: disband the winner takes all system and outlaw the direct corporate bribery of politicians that is institutionalized today. Beyond that I do not know - those just happen to be the glaring errors seen from the perspective of a non-US observer.

They're so sick and tired of politics that it borders on apathy and I really don't see what you could do to re-engage them.

Well, considering the US, having your inept administration declare war upon, invade and completely wreck your energy source and then having your economy collapse from the resulting war cost and skyrocketing energy prices (liberally helped by the credit crunch) might be a good start :-)

Re:Political Repurcussions

[jacquesm]

I won't hold my breath for that! But hoping for change on that side of the pond won't hurt. I know quite a few people that would literally throw a party if the US came to its senses.

Btw, they're not 'mine' by any stretch of the imagination, I'm dutch :)

j.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[plasmacutter]

The DMCA was actually started by some lackey in the early 90's..

I wish I had bookmarked the page because I can't find it right now, but back in '94 or so, some lackey in either the US trade office or the US copyright office dreamed up this idea of "anti-circumvention".

The MAFIAA got whiff of it, and it went from there.

they tried to push laws through congress, and were laughed out as radical nutbags.

They then tried international organizations, and were unable to push it as a treaty through normal channels.

Finally, they simply invented their own forum and shrouded it in obscurity, where they drafted and rammed the treaty through the industrialized world.

Does this sound like ACTA to you yet? it should, because the same tactics used to advance ACTA related agendas were pioneered with the DMCA/wipo treaties.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's any consolation, it's the same in Canada. Both parties are in it. The previous Liberal government proposed Bill C-60, which included many of the same provisions as the current Conservative government's Bill C-61. The previous bill died on the order table when the minority government fell (i.e. the bill was proposed, but never came to a vote).

What's changed is the level of interest and understanding on the part of the public in the intervening years. As the implications of copyright change become more familiar to average people, more people care about the issue. Same for the more egregious problems caused by the DMCA in the US. For example, I encountered DRM-related nonsense that interfered with my legal uses back when the first DVD players came out (Macrovision), but how many people would know who or what was to blame back then? Now, everybody knows what DRM is.

There is a narrowing window over time between what politicians and their media interests want, and what the public will allow them to get away with. It is closing fast, and the more this legislation gets delayed, the more likely we might get copyright reform that strikes a reasonable balance, rather than the travesty that is currently being proposed.

There is a distinct possibility that the same thing may happen to Bill C-61 as happened to C-60. It may die on the order table with the government (there's a possibility of an election in the fall). It's kind of like passing around a hot potato that continues to get hotter over time.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[Sj0]

"Both Parties"?

In Canada?

Re:Political Repurcussions

[Apostata]

"Both Parties"?

In Canada?

He/she must mean "the two that get elected", as opposed to "all of them".

Re:Political Repurcussions

[Abcd1234]

As long as TV advertising is the way to get voters this will not change.

Nah, it's more fundamental than that. The real problem is that Americans have been deluded into believing that money == speech. What they don't seem to get is the collary: that means the rich get to say way more than the poor.

Money as speech is the single dumbest thing I've ever heard of, and eliminating lobbying and private campaign financing would go a long way to correcting the more egregious problem in American politics: legalized bribery.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[WCLPeter]

Those are definitely factors, but the reason I see TV advertising as one of the major problems is that it gives money a huge say in determining the outcome of elections.

Which is why, by law, all political advertising in an election year should be free.

The EM spectrum is a public resource owned by all and is leased to media companies. To keep up with the societal changes brought about with our transition to a mass media culture, those leases should be rewritten to allow the government to make use of this public resource, during an election year, with no cost. This would make running for office much cheaper, if not free.

Couple this with disallowing donations from lobby groups and corporations, since it is the costs of running a campaign that precipitate the need for such donations, and perhaps we might start getting a government for the people again.

Re:Political Repurcussions

[quax]

As a European who has lived in the US and currently Canada I am sorry to report that the political apathy is pretty pronounced in Canada as well. The winner takes all electoral system that has been inherited from the UK reinforces the status quot but there is a fairly persistent movement to change over to a proportional representative system. For Canada this would be a step in the right direction. On the other hand I think a governmental system should accommodate the existing apathy. I.e. let's have more direct democracy but with a twist. How about a little quiz before you can actually vote and your vote will only count if you get the quiz right. Not that I really thought this through. This adds another layer of complexity i.e. who decides about the quiz? But it would be nice if only people could vote on issue that they have a minimum of basic knowledge about.

Facebook group counts ...

[Blade]

Have we really entered an age where the number of people who join facebook groups are used as some kind of measure?

Half the people I know on facebook join whatever the hell their friends join, or click anything they can to get the alerts to go away.

Seriously - really?

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes really.

Facebook is also being used as a measure in political context.

Fucking sad isn't it. Our country is being run by faceless corporations polling emo children to decide which political figures to pay off.

Yeah. We're pretty much doomed as a species. Come on 2012!

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[philspear]

Our country is being run by faceless corporations polling emo children to decide which political figures to pay off.

Take out the "emo children" and replace it with "ignorant, gullible voters" and you could be talking about american history since 1950.

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Your description is largely equivalent to the algorithm by which many people assign votes, so I suspect that we are, indeed, in such an age.

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[Five Bucks!]

I know it's very silly and clearly does not represent any useful statistical figure. Joining a Facebook group requires little time and effort and you do not need to understand the position of the group to join.

However, the very fact that 90 000 individuals in a country of 34 000 000 are members of a single group speaks volumes.

It's not a stretch to draw an analogy to the time honoured petition. They also take very little to sign and you don't need to know the stance of the group either. But if you have a petition with 90 000 signatures, it's a loud document.

Plus, the story made the front page of /. and you plus several hundred thousand more people know of the group.

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[ozphx]

90000 is a far cry from such popular groups as:

"If one million people join I will name my son Batman"

"If ninety thousand people join I will shave the slashdot logo into my pubes"

"Forty million people for anti furry discrimination"

In this modern age, having less than a hundred thousand indicates that nobody really cares.

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[Five Bucks!]

How many times have those groups been on the front page of /. or CBC.ca?

The fact that we're discussing the group means that their job is already done.

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada they are. For some unknown reason, Facebook penetration in Canada is ridiculous. Very nearly a quarter of the country is on it. And this wouldn't be the first time that huge, rapid growth of a Facebook group devoted to defeating a political measure has gotten brought up in Parliament.

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[Mashiki]

>In this modern age, having less than a hundred thousand indicates that nobody really cares.

Canada has a smaller population then the state of California.

Try putting two and two together and see how 90,000 comes together. 200 people can enact policy change in Canada.

Sadly, most people don't seem to get that there are very 'large' countries that have very small populations. I realize this is a large concept to grasp but policies work different in other parts of the world.

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[ozphx]

I'm Australian you insensitive clod. I also have no idea what the state of California looks like, unless its that funny one that looks like a penis.

I bet the 90000 comes together from the 50 canadians that actually understand the policy, and 89950 facebook friends, 90% of them international, and 90% who joined because they don't want to get vanned for using bittorrent.

Then you could even consider that probably under half of them are actually of voting age, so to be controversial, but practical, their opinion doesn't count.

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[mpeskett]

Nah, the penis shaped one is Flordia. California is on the other side of the country and it's shaped more like a piece of bacon... or maybe I just have bacon on the brain

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[TobyWong]

Have we really entered an age where the number of names on a petition are used as some kind of measure?

Half the people I know who sign petitions just sign whatever the hell their friends sign, or sign anything they can to get the person to go away.

Seriously - really?

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"If ninety thousand people join I will shave the slashdot logo into my pubes"

The power of Rule 35 compels you!

Re:Facebook group counts ...

[Doggabone]

Caveat: There's a lot that I don't know well, but I'm going to spout off about some of it anyway.

Have we really entered an age where the number of names on a petition are used as some kind of measure?

Of course a petition is "some kind of measure" - and that's hardly new. At the very least, it's a list of people who DIDN'T tell the petition writer to f*** off. It would be shocking if petitions had become some kind of final arbitrating value, or were given equal credence as polls, or letter writing campaigns, or the ultimate poll - voting.

Obviously petitions can't be given any kind of absolute authority, but still they indicate that there's more than one crazy with a vote out there that might hate you. That's worth considering, if you're in politics. And a Facebook group doesn't end with the petition - there are 90,000 communicating to each other, receiving updates, and already connected in case someone wants to mobilize on the issue. It's certain that most of them won't - but it's also certain that many of them will.

You should see the look on peoples faces when I tell them that the Bell Canada is promoting a new feature on their PVR which would be illegal under the new law. Or that the proposed law is such that the record labels will have the teeth to decide which CDs they can copy to their MP3s. Mostly, all I need to say is "like the American DMCA, and maybe worse", and the light goes on. On every petition are names of people who will work damn hard to sway votes when the time comes ... a large petition or Facebook group is something an intelligent politician must consider. It is a measure of collective will in the voting populace.

And unlike the "One Million Potato Lovers Can't Be Wrong" groups, this one hasn't just popped up and filled right away - it's been growing steadily over weeks, which hints to me and may suggest to a politico that people are considering the issues and getting on board. Those people might have decided to vote based on the issue. It's not final, it's not quantifiable, but it's also not insignificant.

Specifically to the significance of this petition/group - there's a Canadian federal election coming (not yet announced, but imminent). It's going to be nasty. They're going to be measuring and gauging the collective sensibility by every marker they can get their hands on.

its for their own good

[nurb432]

The government will just ignore them and do what they want, as the people are too stupid to know what is right.

( yes thats sarcasm, but its also what the 'man' will do if given a chance )

Re:its for their own good

[Opportunist]

And that's exactly what this is about. Not giving "tha man" a chance to do what he/they please. Saying "oh heck, they do whatever they wan't" won't change a thing, get off your ass and take your country back!

It's not like you even have to leave your house to do that anymore, for crying out loud.

Re:its for their own good

[nurb432]

If you are talking about 'electing someone for the people', they are all the same once they get in power. The system is larger than any one person and consumes those that might actually intend to do good and turns them into "yet another politician" that serves to perpetrate the system.

No, the only real way to make a difference at this point in the game does require you to leave your house.

It won't happen, as usual.

[Pig Hogger]

The government will be swept in an election before the bill can be made law, as it was for the last 6 years...

No conspiracy theory here

[DesScorp]

Despite the conspiracy theories you're likely to hear about this, the reason why the DMCA sailed through Congress is the same reason it'll sail through Canada's legislative process... media companies are responsible for a nice chunk of GNP (and whatever they call it in Canada), and neither side, liberal or conservative, is willing give up that wealth. And both sides believe that things like high technology for consumers and piracy is a danger to their broadcasters and publishers.

The reason opponents are going to lose on this is that all major parties will be on board with the copyright holders. And average voters don't give a rat's ass about copyright reform crusades.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Anonymous Coward]

The legislation has already been delayed once due to public pressure. Any more broad but inaccurate sour grapes from the American peanut gallery?

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[GodKingAmit]

Actually in Canada the official opposition (Liberals) and our left-wing party (NDP) have come out in opposition to this bill. The inability for corporations to donate to federal political parties helps eliminate some of the more obvious forms of bribery. (All parties past a certain threshold are funded using tax dollars - there are also very low limits on individual contributions and no contributions at all from corporations/unions/etc)

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[DesScorp]

The legislation has already been delayed once due to public pressure. Any more broad but inaccurate sour grapes from the American peanut gallery?

Tell you what... if this doesn't pass (looks like January at the earliest), I'll happily eat my words in public. But my money still says it passes.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[BPPG]

sail through Canada's legislative process...

I think you're overestimating the Canadian legislative process, since the Bill itself will be set onto the back burner for maybe the next year or so before actually passing, assuming the government doesn't dissolve into another election and will have to be backburner'd indefinitely. There was almost a couple of times just this summer a Vote of no confidence was brought up.

Liberal and Conservative are indeed the two dominant parties, but they must try their best to cater to voters from other parties (like a Bloc Quebecois supporter who votes for PC while waiting for Bloc to get more power). This is really counter-intuitive, but it's literally impossible to pigeonhole Canadians into two groups, and the both the liberals and conservatives need support of non-party supporters, otherwise they won't get a majority government. (By contrast, PC currently has a minority government, meaning that they've won less than half of the seats available during the last election). Please correct me if I messed up one of these details above, but that's basically federal party politics in summary.

The whole technology and corporations thing isn't as cut and dried as that either. For example, Sony is somewhat opposed to this, since details of the Bill-C61 will means less sales of their DivX television player. But at the same time, Sony represents many label whose interests may be protected by the Bill. So Sony's been mostly passive. Microsoft, on the other hand, is basically threatening to lay off a bunch of workers in Canada, since it's not in their interest to operate as heavily here.

I'm opposed to the bill myself, but I'm optimistic that it will be shut down, maybe occasionally to be rewritten and rear its ugly head again.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[fyoder]

Actually in Canada the official opposition (Liberals) and our left-wing party (NDP) have come out in opposition to this bill.

That doesn't mean that the Liberals will vote against it. They may sit on their hands or run away as they have for past votes. Perhaps a historian of Canadian politics could say whether there was ever a wimpier opposition. I doubt it.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[PFAK]

Last I heard Liberals were supporting copyright reform, including the previous Bill C-60 that they themselves tabled before their government came crashing down.

Please provide proof otherwise?

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[TorontoImporter]

Canada is currently in a minority government position with popular vote also being split very evenly across the country.

Since the current government in Canada is a Conservative 'minority government', and the usual byproduct of a minority government is special interest groups having larger spheres of power. It would be somewhat safe to assume that 90,000 people in a Facebook group would have some sort of say and influence regarding a special interest bill (such as C-61).

Copyright issues even for big media is not enough for a politician in Canada to torpedo his chance of looking 'current' with technological issues and possibly losing votes in the 18-40 demographic.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You seem to be laboring under the dubious assumption that giving the RIAA/MPAA veto power over everything even peripherally related to copyrighted media will somehow make other countries respect(read: pay for) American copyrighted works. WTF? Your position is exactly backward.

Slashdotters(at least this one), are of the position that giving our biggest, meanest, least innovative incumbents a right to sue their competitors into oblivion would be the worst possible thing for American competitiveness in the world market. If American cultural output collapses into the morass of IP litigation that has already claimed parts of engineering, we are much, much, less likely to succeed in the future.

I don't think you should have been modded flamebait, I do think we need a "-1 Not Even Wrong." tag.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[doktor-hladnjak]

The situation isn't really all that different in the States and it still got passed here. In Canada, basically you can't give more than $1000 per year to a candidate. In the US, the amount is $2300 per election (primary and general are separate). In both countries, contributions by corporations and unions are not allowed. In the US they can form PACs from their employees/members, but I'm not sure if something similar exists in Canada.

In the end though, I think it has little to do with direct bribing and more to do with ignorance. Media companies lobby both governments about how these laws need to be passed to reign in copyright infringement so that their revenues (and the gov't tax revenues) can stay high.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Solandri]

Despite the conspiracy theories you're likely to hear about this, the reason why the DMCA sailed through Congress is the same reason it'll sail through Canada's legislative process... media companies are responsible for a nice chunk of GNP (and whatever they call it in Canada)

That's not really true.

The value of RIAA members' shipments (not sales) in 2007 was $10.37 billion.
The value of MPAA members' U.S. domestic box office and home video sales in 2007 was $37.44 billion ($40.92 per person box office + $118.39 per person home video times 235 million adults).

U.S. GDP in 2007 was $13.6 trillion, so together the RIAA and MPAA comprise 0.35% of the U.S. economy. For comparison, the MP3 player market in the U.S. for 2007 was an estimated $5.4 billion. That's just MP3 players, never mind accessories, home audio systems, headphones, car stereos, etc.

If they were a Fortune 500 companies, the MPAA's movie-related sales would come in at #62, and the RIAA's members would come in at #256. They wield so much power because they make a disproportionately high amount of campaign donations.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[earthforce_1]

Unfortunately, the liberals introduced C-60 which was almost as bad, and died on the order table. More information ( and chance to leave comments)
on the CBC web page

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/story/2008/08/17/copyright-battle.html

(The NDP and Greens have come out solidly against changes to our copyright law)

The one weapon we have is the knowledge that MPs want to keep their jobs and a small number of swing votes can make a difference in a minority government. Call your MPs office and book a meeting regardless what party they are to discuss your opposition to C-61. Show up at any public meetings or town halls they may hold. Let them know that this decides your vote, and you will not be swayed. C-61 must die. If more than a few people do it they will clue in that this is a major issue they could lose their seats over. Eventually even the tories will be beaten with a cluestick thick enough to realize that in pleasing their american masters they have poisoned their chances of re-election. This is not an obscure issue for the under 30 crowd, they are well aware of what they stand to lose.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't mean that the Liberals will vote against it. They may sit on their hands or run away as they have for past votes. Perhaps a historian of Canadian politics could say whether there was ever a wimpier opposition. I doubt it.

If the Libs voted against everything that they didn't completely like we'd be having elections every three months. And given the polls, we'd have minority governments that probably flip between Libs and Cons.

What's the point in bringing down the government if the end result is to end up where you started?

As it stands the Libs have to pinch their nose and let some things slide and try to patch legislation in committee so that it's not so odious. The politicians are in Ottawa to try to keep things running smoothly; you can't do that if you're dissolving Parliament every other week.

Welcome to minority governments.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Sepper]

My own MP (Liberal) told me that they will vote *for* it... but won't allow to go on without major changes... They are not opposed to the bill itself , but how it's written.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Anonymous Coward]

giving the RIAA/MPAA veto power over everything even peripherally related to copyrighted media

Huh? The act proposes to outlaw cracking DRM applied to copyrighted material. How does this give the RIAA/MPAA "veto power over everything"?

It is up to the copyright holder to decide whether they even want to use DRM. Open source providers don't. And as we've seen, even non-open source commercial providers sometimes choose not to use it. Fine, if that works, then that can be a win all around.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Random Guru 42]

With the way that the Tories and Libs are both gearing up for fall elections, we might just end up being lucky and seeing a far more reasonable bill show up in the 40th legislature.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Cecil]

What's the point in bringing down the government if the end result is to end up where you started?

Well, some would say principles but we all know there's no room for that in politics.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[yuna49]

My understanding is that the content industries have often stressed the export value of their products more than their contribution to domestic revenues. I've tried once again in vain to find the statistical backing for these claims, but I cannot find any tables at either the Census Bureau or the trade-related agencies that break out data for things like overseas music and movie royalties. The only data I can find is for licensing fees for all types of intellectual property, which includes many other things like patent licenses.

Nevertheless as US merchandise exports, particularly manufacturing exports, fell over the past couple of decades, the contribution to exports from intellectual property grew substantially. I believe the content industries often stress this fact in lobbying more than the contribution of their member companies to total GDP.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[SleepyHappyDoc]

Oooh, who was it? This way, you can tell him the next time you see him that you informed the world of his choice so he can face the consequences at the polls.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[GodKingAmit]

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3241/125/

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[BForrester]

Which is why corporations have to go about bribery more indirectly than just cutting a cheque. If they want to swing an MP's favour, they can:

-invite them to lavish parties, where guests receive expensive "door prizes"
-contribute to charitable causes in the MP or MPP's community, such as the member's children's school or sports teams
-provide their own services or goods at a hefty discount or entirely off the books

Preventing blatant, direct bribery is a good thing, but it generally just forces corps to get creative.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point in bringing down the government if the end result is to end up where you started?

Well, some would say principles but we all know there's no room for that in politics.

I agree that it's admirable for a person to have, but I recognize realpolitik when I see it.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The effective grant of veto power occurs in two basic ways:

1. Litigation for contributory infringement: As in the Betamax case, companies can be sued for creating and selling a product that would facilitate copyright infringement. In the Betamax case, Sony won(luckily for everybody, as it turns out). There is no guarantee for future innovators that things would go quite as well, which leads to substantial uncertainty and danger for the potential innovator. See also the lawsuits concerning things like cable TV, DAT, and mp3.com

2. DRM systems and "hook IP": When a DRM system is adopted(we'll look at CSS by way of example, others are conceptually similar), anybody who wants to build a device that interacts with DRMed media can do so only with the permission of the relevant licensing consortium(DVD Copy Control Association, in the case of CSS). This makes the licensing consortium, generally under the institutional control of large rightsolders like the RIAA and MPAA, the legal gatekeepers to all developments in electronics and product design that interact with the DRMed media in question. At best, they use this power to collect a tax of sorts on compliant devices, at worst they impose substantial hindrances as a condition for licensing(this is why all open-source DVD player software is illegal in the US, and why ripping CDs to your mp3 player is easy and legal, while ripping DVDs for your PMP is a legal mess, and underexplored in the market).

I agree that the act, and others like it, doesn't literally grant veto power; but the de facto effect is what matters.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Pig Hogger]

Despite the conspiracy theories you're likely to hear about this, the reason why the DMCA sailed through Congress is the same reason it'll sail through Canada's legislative process... media companies are responsible for a nice chunk of GNP (and whatever they call it in Canada), and neither side, liberal or conservative, is willing give up that wealth.

Actually, no. It's only the foreign media conglomerates who are pushing for the law. Canadian artists are against it, and the canadian "industry" has not overwhelmingly been pushing in it's favour.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Jorophose]

Dion just needs a confidence push. People need to show him they'll stand behind that.

In many cities, namely the capital, all the newspapers are conservative and have been so for a long time. Globe and Mail was founded by an old Blue Party member... It must not be very nice to wake up and see more slamming in the media about you.

If he's given enough confidence that people will have faith in him as liberal leader he'll topple government and call in an election. Considering everyone is fucking sick and tired of Harper, and know that Dion can be swayed by his cabinet, it's very likely Harper's not going to make it out alive. And that's why he's playing like he's the king of the castle, because it depresses Dion and he knows that.

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[fyoder]

If he's given enough confidence that people will have faith in him as liberal leader he'll topple government and call in an election.

Perhaps, but somehow I don't see the Canadian people sending messages of support just to boost his confidence. Perhaps a quick jab in the calf with a testosterone coated needle tipped cane could do as well. Or maybe a confidence inspiring affair with a fabulous babe (He doesn't need to know she was paid).

Re:No conspiracy theory here

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada, GDP for "Information and cultural industries [51]" is $44,820,000,000, the majority of which is telecom and tv.

To contrast, the GDP for "Information and communication technology sector [T013]" is $58,266,000,000.

I'd expect the latter group to oppose DMCA style laws, and they're the larger group by GDP.

source

It needs to be said...

[Dzimas]

Michael Geist is a shining example of why academics are critically important in society - and why governments detest them. His running analysis of bill C-61 has been eloquent, straightforward and polite. He has earned a loyal following be clearly explaining what the flaws of the legislation are and how they will impact Canadians in everyday use (for example, how the Government is touting the clauses that grant timeshifting and device shifting rights while glossing over the fact that other parts of the legislation effectively neuter consumer rights where DRM is involved).

Dr. Geist's blog posts and editorials in several major Canadian newspapers encouraged me to write to several members of parliament after a lifetime of political apathy. More importantly, I've done my best to explain the legislation's flaws to others, too, in the hope that they will take action. Several have, also for the first time.

My MP is ignoring it...

[mykepredko]

I've written a couple of emails and talked to his office manager about the issue and asked why the Liberal party is not making this a confidence motion. It's bad legislation and bad for the country.

For anybody else in Etobicoke-Lakeshore (Toronto South-West), please drop a line to Michael Ignatieff and let him know what you think.

Thanx,

myke

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't want this to be a confidence motion. When you do that, there's suddenly a whole lot more riding on the passage of the bill than the actual legislation. MPs and parties will think twice before voting against it if it means triggering an election, and it greatly increases the degree to which the parties will get their MPs to toe the party line.
With a non-confidence vote, MPs are far more likely to vote on the actual merits of the bill, and what their constituents have expressed to them.

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[mykepredko]

Except that Harper's itching for an election - if he could trigger one on somebody looking at him funny he would do it.

myke

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've written to him about this issue (and even wrote a nicely typewritten letter and sent it by mail), but I haven't heard anything back.

This was a few months ago.

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[SleepyHappyDoc]

Don't feel bad. I wrote my MP about this, too, and she added me to several spam email lists, soliciting donations for the NDP.

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[TheBig1]

I wrote a real letter to my MP (who happens to be Stephen Harper himself) expressing my disagreement with this bill. He replied with the standard form letter listing all the 'benefits' of the bill, and how my life will be so much better when it passes. I am seriously thinking of writing back saying that I was not asking for his opinion, I was telling him mine, and that if the bill passes, I will never vote Conservative again. (No need to mention that I have not voted conservative yet...).

This guy and his corrupt party just make me mad...

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[Random Guru 42]

You should. And don't just write, but phone and email and while the House is out, visit the constituency office even without an appointment. Get on Harper's ass about it.

It might not do much, but you'll feel better, and he might actually have second thoughts if he's planning to make it a confidence issue or otherwise gun it through Commons.

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[Jerry Rivers]

Then maybe this whole thing is a ruse to trigger an election and they have no intention of ever passing the bill. It makes them look good to CRIA lobby, yet doesn't actually mean they have to do anything. If elected they will move the entire issue to the bottom of the legislative pile. Much like the Liberals always do with pot laws.

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[kcbanner]

Do it. Do us all some good.

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[schon]

Three critical steps:

1. Reply, pointing out that their standard form letter is full of lies and half-truths (maybe point out a few of them.)

2. Send copies of the letter to the NDP and Liberal candidates in your riding (or the head of their parties if you don't know who they are.)

3. BE VERY BLUNT AND LET HARPER KNOW YOU'RE CC'ING THE OTHERS.

The third part is the most important - it makes it much harder for him to ignore you if other people who want his job are aware they have something to attack him with.

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not a confidence motion because its not that simple.

If they opposition in not in a position to take advantage of an election, they don't want to see a new one any more than the sitting government does.

As primary opposition party to a minority government they are actually in a better position to get what they want done than if they were in the hot seat.

People tend to blame the government in power for what ever went wrong, even if it wasen't there fault, meanwhile the opposition DOES get credit for stopping bad legislation. And lets face it theres a hell of a lot more bad legislation in the world than good.

This means its easier for an opposition party to gain good publicity than the sitting government.

Add in the fact that Canada has a history of electing minority governments (theres been a dozen) any opposition party knows that forcing a confidence issue could actually worsen their position.

Canadians have a pretty solid track record of giving the people we don't like the boot in short order (and frequently spectacular ways, after pissing us off the conservatives went from 151 to 2 seats in one election. Its hard to misinterpret THAT message) combine that with a minority government and its usually better to be the opposition party than the actual government.

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[TheBig1]

Thank you (and the others who replied) for your encouragement. Here is my reply letter:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Re: Bill C-61

Hello Mr. Harper,

I had written you last month to voice my concerns about bill C-61, and inform you that I was not in agreement with it as currently constituted. I have just received a standard form-letter reply to my initial letter, listing all of the 'benefits' which are to be included with this new proposed law, and how it is "made-in-Canada" with all sorts of benefits to Canadians.

You have obviously either missed my point, or chose to ignore it. I was not requesting propaganda on this bill - I was writing to inform you (as my representative) of my opinion. To re-state the major point in my previous letter, the most important of my concerns is included here.

The major loophole which you have managed to include in the bill, but which you continually ignore in all your official propaganda, is the DRM exception: if any copyright holder includes any digital rights management on the content, all your rights as a consumer, which this bill would give you, are void. To quote Michael Geist: "The Canadian DMCA allows every single exception to copyright to be eliminated by adding DRM: whatever the law allows you to do, a corporation can take away, just by using DRM to prevent you from doing it. Breaking DRM is illegal, unless you fit into a tiny, narrow, useless exception for security research."

Let me reiterate on this point: I am opposed to bill C-61, and I refuse to vote for any politician who supports it. If you and your party continue to bring forward and support bills of this nature, you will lose yet another voter from the "Conservative West".

I am copying this letter to my local, non-Conservative MPs, as well as the heads of the opposition parties, in the hope that they will encourage their parties fulfill their responsibilities, and oppose such blatant disregard of the wishes of their constituents.

Respectfully Yours,

<signed>

Re:My MP is ignoring it...

[Pig Hogger]

Then maybe this whole thing is a ruse to trigger an election and they have no intention of ever passing the bill. It makes them look good to CRIA lobby, yet doesn't actually mean they have to do anything. If elected they will move the entire issue to the bottom of the legislative pile. Much like the Liberals always do with pot laws.

That could be it; I reviewed the actual bill with my lawyer, and he basically said that such a law would be unenforcable. It basically is eye candy to please a few vocal big mouths (the US media).

Like if the already thinly-stretched RCMP needed more imaginary crimes to go after...

Unlike America

[Billly Gates]

Where they dont care what a few thousand people have to say and they listen to the lobbiest more for more campaign cash.

Property rights will trump the democratic process

[hwstar]

The US was founded as a republic and not a democracy for this very reason. I do know that Canada is a representative democracy like the US,
so therefore the same reasoning may apply there as well.

The individuals in the capatilist class (the top 2% of the population) own the means of production.
The rest of the classes, are at the mercy of how well this 2% shares or grants access to the means of production.

Why do you think the government pointed machine guns at the union protesters back in the early 20th century? Because if the status quo were changed it would go against what the founding fathers envisioned! A representative democracy is set up to protect property rights first so that the capitalist class can maintain control, then human rights and the democratic process come second.

So, yes, the Canadian DMCA will pass if Canada is much like the USA in this regard.

Canada doesn't rig elections like the US

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if even slashdot users can't remember who caused the original DMCA to happen, what hope is there that any Canadian politicians would be worried?

Wikipedia is at your fingertips... Introduced by Howard Coble. Of course, that illustrates an even more interesting problem. This is his district. Now have a look at district 12. Howard Coble is only in office because of unconstitutional gerrymandering. The only way that bastard is leaving office is in a casket. He can shove whatever shit he wants right down your throat and there's not a damn thing you or anyone else can do about it. Of course, that isn't a problem in Canada, so anyone fool enough to push a DMCA up there can expect to lose their job.

Canada. On Strike!

[chrispatch]

Canada. On Strike!

Re:Canada. On Strike!

[Anonymous Coward]

that really is all you americans know about canada isn't it! Just what you saw on one episode of south park. why must this line come up any time canada protests something?!

Re:Canada. On Strike!

[ikono]

Yeah! You tell him, buddy!

Re:Canada. On Strike!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! You tell him, buddy!

I'm not your buddy guy!

Re:Canada. On Strike!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not your buddy guy!

I'm not your guy, pal!

Re:Canada. On Strike!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not your pal, friend!

Educated and Informed -- about issues.

[Safiire Arrowny]

I think he means educated and informed about the issues they're voting for, not IQ or whether they're 'school' educated.

Canada is a democracy

[Rix]

If Canadian politicians don't respond to the wishes of their constituents, they have the option of replacing them. The current ruling party, for example, is only about 20 years old.

It's not comparable to the US system where Democrats have a monopoly on the left and Republicans on the right.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[LoveGoblin]

The current ruling party, for example, is only about 20 years old.

I think by "20" you mean "5".

Re:Canada is a democracy

[Five Bucks!]

The current Governing party, the Conservative Party of Canada, is only fiver years old.

The Progressive Conservative party and the Canadian Alliance merged in October of 2003.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The current Governing party, the Conservative Party of Canada, is only fiver years old.

The Progressive Conservative party and the Canadian Alliance merged in October of 2003.

shortly after the PC's got obliterated for being dickheads.

We KILLED an entire political party, not just a minor one either, that was a majority party that went down the tubes. Its been done more than once too.

Not saying that Canada's system is prefect, but in this case its stronger than the US one. Were not stuck with a political duopoly. Theres enough parties kicking around that going for the 'third party' option (hell even 4th or 5th) isn't a joke. And those second (and third) options keep the big boys honest.

All they have to do is look at the conservatives and remember their status as the big boys is entirely revocable.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not comparable to the US system where Democrats have a monopoly on the left and Republicans on the right.

I'm sorry for beating this dead horse again, but it seems to get resurrected by Americans any time. The US system has democrats on the right and republicans on the far right. There is no left wing representation of any significance.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[Rix]

The Reform Party was founded in 1987. Sure, they change their name every 5 years or so, but still.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[funkatron]

It's not comparable to the US system where Democrats have a monopoly on the right and Republicans on the far right.

Fixed

Re:Canada is a democracy

[canuck57]

If Canadian politicians don't respond to the wishes of their constituents, they have the option of replacing them. The current ruling party, for example, is only about 20 years old.

It's not comparable to the US system where Democrats have a monopoly on the left and Republicans on the right.

Much older, the PC Party joined the Reform party, so in fact PC Party now lives on in the Conservative party. Why Reformers ever did this was beyond me.

Canadian politics is like the Three Stooges. Moe (Harper), Curly (Laytoon) and Larry (Dion). People don't have real confidence in any of them.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[Pig Hogger]

Much older, the PC Party joined the Reform party, so in fact PC Party now lives on in the Conservative party. Why Reformers ever did this was beyond me.

They did this to look acceptable. The Reform Party is a bunch of unwashed evangelist rednecks, which never amounted to any significance in Canadian politics. The Progressive Conservative Party, on the other hand, has had a pretty long list of distinguished leaders, and even though it mostly was the opposition, has had plenty of positive influence in Canadian politics (it was the party that founded Canada, for that matter, and the party that had built the transcontinental railroad).

The reform party as itself could never gain power, as it is dramatically opposed to all canadian values, so it simply swallowed-up the conservatives just to get the respectable name, thus giving themselves only a veneer of respectability.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[Artifakt]

And to those of you who think this is rhetorical:
In the 60's, one presidential candidate supported a guaranteed income of 1,200$ per year minimum to every citizen, regardless of whether they worked or not. (That was enough to buy a new Mustang convertible back then). That same candidate supported government price fixing for all major commodities, and worked hard to establish closer ties with a major communist country once elected. That candidate had a plan to fix up decaying inner cities that would have assigned up to five union carpenters, electricians and plumbers just to training roles for each new laborer inducted from the local areas into those unions, with most of the actual work being done by the local hires (and this plan failed to be implemented only because the unions wanted even more trainers per new hire and another politician promised them up to a 17 to 1 ratio). That same candidate ran on a promise to pull troops out of an unpopular war, and did so. He set time tables for withdrawing and winding down the war in many cases, and was widely characterized as being out of touch to the far, far right when he insisted upon keeping even some of his plans for withdrawing secret.
        That candidate was Richard Nixon, the guy seen then as moderately right of center only because Barry Goldwater was 'even farther right'. By todays standards, Nixon would score about as far left as Dennis Kucinich or Ted Kennedy, maybe even farther.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[jbr439]

OTOH, Preston Manning's Reform Party would not have introduced such an anti-consumer bill as C-61. What we have today is a reconstituted Progressive Conservative party that happens to have a number of former Reform Party people, and is guided by the pro-big business principles of the old PC Party. Sigh.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[Jardine]

The Reform Party was founded in 1987. Sure, they change their name every 5 years or so, but still.

I liked it when they were called CCRAP.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[Sj0]

I disagree.

The republicans are far left. They want to introduce amazingly massive reforms across the board, changing 200 year old traditions (Who finally killed the gold standard? Nixon. Who started the first war of aggression from the US in a century? Bush.) and leading "People's liberation armies" across Europe.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[Apostata]

Actually the current ruling party is less than five years old. They have no resemblance to or relationship with the former Progressive Conservative Party.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[philipgar]

Calling Bush "far right" is a huge laugh. One of the reasons Bush is so widely disliked across the spectrum is because he is not strongly conservative, and not strongly liberal. He is pushing a huge war in the middle east that is the exact opposite of one of his early campaign promises (to keep US troops at home and stay away from peace keeping missions). A "far right" president may have supported the war in Iraq, deposing Saddam, and throwing in a dictator friendly to the US governments interests. Sticking it out and wasting billions of dollars on bringing democracy to the middle east is not a "far right" idea, that's the idea of peace keeping which Bill Clinton was always big on. It's a feel good idea to help make people feel better for fighting a war.

Bush has also not pushed for any significant conservative legislation. His education "reforms" are very liberal, and gave the federal government more control over education. His views on immigration are the same as the democrats (open borders and amnesty). The only issues that people can point at him and say he is conservative are social issues. Bush is a strong Christian, which is an automatically bad thing. He is anti-abortion, which I can understand why people dislike that. However after the past 8 years, have any laws really reflected this? Some government money might now go to church-based charities, instead of only to non-denominational ones. Aside from that, has anything really changed on this front? Social issues like this are always big talking points before an election, but at the end of the day politicians rarely enact real and meaningful change in regard to them.

Bush's stance on the war on terror tends to be "right wing", but the libertarian fringe of the republican party (who are considered further right) tend to be against these movements. However the actions of the patriot act are things that both Republicans and Democrats have pushed for at one time or another. Both tend to seek increasing the governments power (although Republicans were, once upon a time the small government party), however they only tend to want to increase the power when they're in charge, hence the democrats objections to the patriot act while the republicans are in charge.

I would consider many Democratic and Republican actions to be "on the left". Both tend to favor big government, the distinction being how big. One wants socialized health care, the other wants this hideous bureaucratic and inefficient mess that they've created as "compromises". One wants the government to fully pay for peoples retirement, the other wants the people to have some say in how the government pays for their retirement. For most issues, neither party is looking to smaller government, but thankfully neither party is looking fully into socialism either.

Phil

Re:Canada is a democracy

[canuck57]

Much older, the PC Party joined the Reform party, so in fact PC Party now lives on in the Conservative party. Why Reformers ever did this was beyond me.

They did this to look acceptable. The Reform Party is a bunch of unwashed evangelist rednecks, which never amounted to any significance in Canadian politics. The Progressive Conservative Party, on the other hand, has had a pretty long list of distinguished leaders, and even though it mostly was the opposition, has had plenty of positive influence in Canadian politics (it was the party that founded Canada, for that matter, and the party that had built the transcontinental railroad).

The reform party as itself could never gain power, as it is dramatically opposed to all canadian values, so it simply swallowed-up the conservatives just to get the respectable name, thus giving themselves only a veneer of respectability.

Reformers were the official opposition when the PC party almost slipped into non-existence. If you mean distinguished? Do you mean like Brian Mulroney, the one that accepts $300,000 cash? Or do you mean Stephan Harper, the one that we don't trust because he lies costing Canadian investors almost as much as US investors were hit with Enron?

But I suspect you are a civil servant, they hated Reformers because they never hid their agenda of cleaning up bribe and corruption central, Ottawa.

Re:Canada is a democracy

[Pig Hogger]

Reformers were the official opposition when the PC party almost slipped into non-existence.

Actually, no. When the Tories went from 222 to 2 seats, Lucien Bouchard's Bloc Québécois became the opposition.

If you mean distinguished? Do you mean like Brian Mulroney, the one that accepts $300,000 cash?

Yes, distinguished like Sir John A. McDonald, or like Robert Stanfield, or Joe Clark. And, yes, distinguished like Brian Mulroney, because he made **TWO** genuine efforts to try to have Québec ratify the 1982 constitution.

Or do you mean Stephan Harper, the one that we don't trust because he lies costing Canadian investors almost as much as US investors were hit with Enron?

I don't know how a rabid right-wing evangelist who only wants to turn Canada in a northerner United State could be construed as "distinguished"...

But I suspect you are a civil servant, they hated Reformers because they never hid their agenda of cleaning up bribe and corruption central, Ottawa.

The unwashed western huns only wanted to replace the rule-of-law civil service by unfetterred free-market by destroying the State so they could roam about and profit off everyone else, whithout a State to protect the poorer people.

But how a rabid "separatist" (I'm sovereignist; the french always has been separate) could get a civil service job in Ottawa???

Will this bill get passed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this copyright bill even come to a vote?

Listening to the bravado coming from Harper and Dion lately, it seems Canada will likely have an election this fall; in which case this bill will die before even coming to a vote.

My guess is that the Tories will wait until they get a majority, and then they'll reintroduce this bill and ram it through Parliament.

Re:Property rights will trump the democratic proce

[ZippyKitty]

I do know that Canada is a representative democracy like the US,

Actually we are technically a constitutional monarchy... not that the difference is relevant for this discussion.

Why do you think the government pointed machine guns at the union protesters back in the early 20th century? Because if the status quo were changed it would go against what the founding fathers envisioned! A representative democracy is set up to protect property rights first so that the capitalist class can maintain control, then human rights and the democratic process come second.

So, yes, the Canadian DMCA will pass if Canada is much like the USA in this regard.

I think that Canada isn't like US as much in this regard. Traditionally we have been more socialist, with more emphasis on the rights of the worker. So while corporations have an obscene amount of control... I think the individual voters have a little more say than in the US.

I agree with the analysis that this will probably die on the order paper. Harper is so spoiling for an election it isn't funny.

ZK

Re:Michael Liberal Geist

[Anonymous Coward]

That's it? That's the best you can do? You have nothing but a partisan turd to drop on the debate? Are you some kind of running dog lacky?

It's funny what you get used to.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It just struck me, reading this thread, how really fucked up the implied procedure at work here is.

We have a bill, moving forward, over which the citizenry seems to be divided between those opposed and those apathetic. And, nevertheless, the bill has a credible shot at passing, and this is treated as a fairly unremarkable occurrence. The fact that legislation can happen, in absence of popular support, unless some(large) quantity of displeasure materializes, is a seriously broken imitation of representative government.

It shouldn't take mass protest to kill legislation that has near zero popular support, it should simply die as a matter of course. How did we come to accept a situation where that isn't the case?

Re:It's funny what you get used to.

[XavidX]

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/17/0126243/

Its like what happened in Sweden in the wire tapping law. Zero Support for the law and alot of protest. I cant wait to see how many votes the current government will get next election.

Its sooo sick. what is this world comming too.

Re:It's funny what you get used to.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the real problem is that we allow corporations to "vote" with their dollars. It sounds like this shouldn't be the case in Canada, but in the US, they can more bills forward with their money. However if you try and point out how this isn't democratic you get slandered and treated like an idiot.

You'll also notice that we have a president in office who won with less votes that the other candidate. if that isn't anti-democratic i don't know what is.

d

Re:It's funny what you get used to.

[radarsat1]

I fully agree with you. And how can we fix it? Mass protest? It's sad that there are so many issues to fight at least several of them get through the political sieve every year. Particularly with the conservatives in charge. It's just too much to fight.

Re:It's funny what you get used to.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because our Government is for sale, and on this issue, it's already been sold.

Re:It's funny what you get used to.

[Anonymous Coward]

The root cause of the problem is GIGO. In the US, the system is capable of supporting (erring on the high side) 5 people from the 2 parties, including primary season. Expand to fringe parties and you get perhaps 10 people.

That gives you 10 possible values to express your entire range of opinions on economics, technology, education, foreign policy, size of government, etc. There's nowhere near enough resolution there to describe the nuances in a person's opinion on any one issue, let alone all of them.

The problem is with a system that elects representative *people*. We should be electing *ideas*. Have more referendums, have parties from each opinion in each field that have to cooperate somehow. I don't know what such a system would look like, but it's clear with the system we have we have to do HEAVY prioritizing in how we vote; we can't express our full opinions. That's not good enough for me.

Re:It's funny what you get used to.

[Anonymous Coward]

And how can we fix it? Mass protest?

in a word, revolution. in two words, bloody revolution. things aren't that bad atm, but the way things are going it doesn't look too far off (best to keep your machete ready).

Re:It's funny what you get used to.

[Spinalcold]

Yup, a representative democracy doesn't always do what the people what, or voted for in the first place. I wish we could vote on some critical decisions, but we put someone in power and they do whatever they want for 4 years.

Re:It's funny what you get used to.

[freedom_india]

How did we come to accept a situation where that isn't the case?

By allowing private companies to contribute to parties.
ALL candidates should be funded by public funds given by ALL people as surcharge on taxes. The playing field becomes equal.
If that happens then things will fall in line.
Am sure many 'dotters would criticize my approach as socialist: True. But then the much vaunted capitalism has resulted in this situation.

Vote in the Ficus!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think us Canadians should try voting in the Ficus plant. Maybe it will work better for us. :)

News From The Home Front

[Easy2RememberNick]

I've got a foxhole dug in my living room.

  I'm running out of Red Bull and Cheetos.

  My Xbox subscription runs out in a month.

  Can't...go on much longer...

Re:Michael Liberal Geist

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn is right. This is Slashdot, couldn't you have called him a gay platypus with syphillis or something?

I could care less about Canadian music, but

[LM741N]

if they start patenting pot strains and issuing DMCA pot slash-down notices, I'm really going to be pissed.

Re:THEFT is THEFT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot, the point is that even the LEGAL copying becomes outlawed with the new bill.

Got a home stereo?
Got an MP3 player?
Got a computer?
Got a car?

Got all four?

Want to buy four copies of everything because the new law says format shifting is illegal*?

OR would you rather pay once for a song that you can listen to where every you happen to be?

The bill isn't just about file sharing, thats already illegal anyway (keep in mind the differnce between Canadian and American law at this point please. Things like the blank media levy make a big difference), this bill is trying to make DRM and Trusted Computing a governmentally enforced way of life.

*Technically the law says format shifting is legal, however is also makes cracking any DRM illegal, so if your music came with DRM format shifting is illegal. Nice catch there eh?

That's a rather wide definition of "merged"

[Rix]

It would be more accurate to say the Progressive Conservative Party was purchased by the Reform Party, which was founded in 1987.

Re:That's a rather wide definition of "merged"

[Apostata]

Yup. They allowed the Reform Party members to hold dual membership in either party, so when it came time to vote on the merger, Reformers could double-dip while the PCP'ers were stuck with one vote.

I stood as a delegate to stop the merger. It was u-g-l-y.

To quote the Letter the Parent Linked:

[plasmacutter]

Liberal MP Marlene Jennings, who serves as the party's deputy house leader, has been sending the following letter to concerned constituents about Bill C-61. The letter, which is the most substantive that I have seen, is posted in its entirety with permission.

Thank you for your letter concerning Bill C-61, An Act to amend the Copyright Act. Over the last few months I have made a concerted effort to better inform myself of all of the issues associated with copyright reform in Canada. In this vein, I joined the Intellectual Property (IP), Anti-Counterfeiting and Anti-Piracy Parliamentary Caucus. Through the meetings and consultations held by this group I came to the conclusion that reform of our copyright legislation will, I hope, have the following principles at its core:

1) Anti-circumvention measures and penalties must be linked to the efforts of those who violate copyright for commercial purposes, and not just the technology itself;

2) Provisions for flexible fair dealing. Fair dealing creates a limited number of exceptions, including private study, research, criticism, review and news reporting to charges of infringement.

3) It would also incorporate a fair and well defined 'notice and notice' system, which involves a notification from a copyright holder - often involving movies, software or music - claiming that a subscriber has made available or downloaded content without authorization on file sharing systems. The Internet Service Provider forwards the notification to the subscriber but takes no other action - it does not pass along the subscriber's personal information, remove the content from its system, or cancel the subscriber's service. It falls to the subscriber to remove the infringing content (if indeed it is infringing) voluntarily.
In assessing the degree to which Bill C-61 incorporated these basic principles, I compared it with the previous Liberal government's proposed copyright Bill - Bill C-60 - which was introduced in June of 2005. Bill C-61 incorporates the same 'notice and notice' requirements as Bill C-60.

Though C-61 appears to offer more flexibility on fair dealing, in banning circumvention technology the means to legitimately copy or change formats is torn from the hands of legitimate users. Thus, the section of the bill banning legitimate anti-circumvention technology needs to be eliminated and replaced with something that experts in the field would feel is more appropriate in allowing a greater deal of flexibility in fair dealing. I hope that these changes will be developed during the committee's study of the bill.

In Bill C-60 (clause 27, new subsection 34.02(1)) anti-circumvention penalties required that circumvention be for the commercial purpose of infringing copyright, for example reproduction or communication of the work, whereas Bill C-61 (clause 31-new subsection 41.1(1)) prohibits circumvention in general and does not require infringement of an economic right in the work (thus circumvention alone is deemed an infringement). The bill prohibits picking the digital locks (often referred to as circumventing technological protection measures) that frequently accompany consumer products such as CDs, DVDs, and electronic books. Under the new bill, transferring music from a copy-protected CD to an iPod could violate the law. So too could efforts to play a region-coded DVD from a non-Canadian region.

Even the few exceptions to anti-circumvention measures in the bill are deceptive since the software programs needed to pick the digital lock in order to protect privacy or engage in research are prohibited. This is a part of the bill I hope will be amended when the bill gets to committee so that only deliberate infringement of commercial copyright is punished, not the possession of the technology to do so.

As you can see, this is a highly technical piece of legislation, and I will have to study it more closely. While it is my hope that the Conservatives will send this bill to committee for further study and changes b

wrong direction, we need a +1..

[plasmacutter]

I don't think you should have been modded flamebait, I do think we need a "-1 Not Even Wrong." tag.

we need a +1 "for the pillories" tag which will place a stupid comment at +5 as an example of the height of stupidity in a thread.

To prevent threads from turning into a morass of flamebait, only the post with the highest number of "for the pillory" mods will actually have those mod points in effect.

This way, we have a democratically elected "village idiot" post for each slashdot response column.

Americans need to stop with the cynicism already!

[plasmacutter]

In canada, the MSM has given this issue pervasive coverage, and most of it from Geist's point of view (e.g. it's the worst thing since Hitler's Germany)

Granted it's had a little while to cool down since introduction, but that while has been rife with op-ed's and official stories ripping it a new one.

This includes big tv news, and many local print publications.

according to the end of this video, some MP's are actually making this bill a major campaign issue.

Imagine if feinstein were suddenly bombarded for a month straight with nothing but reporters and constituents asking why she's selling them out to hollywood through letters, print, and live tv.

Dont belittle these efforts, they're actuall making headway there!

Yawn -- Jefferson Debate

[Russell McOrmond]

Sorry, but copyright infringement isn't anything remotely like "theft".

Jefferson Debate: A Godwin's law for copyright discussions?
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_Debate

Possible election soon..

[Russell McOrmond]

People need to be looking at this issue in terms of possible election. During the election we need to identify people who will be helpful to us, and people who are harmful -- no matter what political party they are from. This area of policy is really about specific people, not about the parties.

The Liberals were proponents of this policy direction after tabling Bill C-60, the not-quite-as-bad-as-DMCA implementation, and generally were uninterested in any conversations. That is typical of the governing party to have party MPs just tow the party line. The Conservatives at the time said nothing relevant as a party, with individual MPs being all over the map. The Conservative party platform around Copyright didn't touch the hot-button issues (new right of non-interoperability for Copyright holders, legal protection for foreign locks placed on our hardware, will actual evidence of infringing activity be needed for P2P/etc cases, etc).

The Conservatives are now proponents of this policy direction after tabling C-61, the much-worse-than-DMCA implementation, and Conservative MPs are generally uninterested in any conversations. The Liberals are now all over the map, but mostly just opposing for the sake of opposing, and not being any more clear than the Conservatives were around C-60 on what their positions is.

The Bloc is currently a wildcard as they lost their Heritage critic who is running provincially rather than federally. They have historically sided with individual/independent creators, just as the NDP has. The NDP is now clearly on our side http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/4787 , after a switch of Heritage critics (from someone who didn't understand digital issues to a musician who does). The same type of thing can happen with the Bloc if the right well-informed MP gets elected and takes on this area of policy for the party.

That's the 4 parties with seats in the current parliament. During and immediately after an election is the best time for parties to form and articulate different policy directions, so we really need to be meeting with everyone (including candidates in the upcoming election, not just our current MPs) to determine who-is-who and to make sure they all know that constituents are concerned about this issue.

By the way -- anyone who doesn't know about http://digital-copyright.ca/ should check the site out and get involved in the forums. We also have a BLOG with a taxonomy topic for each riding, allowing us to build a library of articles about specific MPs and candidates.

Non-partisan issue!

[Russell McOrmond]

Michael Geist was the editor of an entire book that was critical of the Liberal C-60, so it is simply invalid to suggest this is a partisan issue.

http://www.irwinlaw.com/books.aspx?bookid=120

Note: It is Creative Commons licensed, and able to be downloaded for free if you want to see what it said against the Liberal Bill C-60.

I am also one of those actively involved in this policy, and I could care less about partisan politics. This is an issue where the knowledge of individual people matter, not the parties. I work with informed MPs from any party, and disagree with misinformed MPs from any party. It just happens that right now the government is Conservative (and thus that is the party giving the silent treatment), and the most informed member on this area of policy is musician Charlie Angus who just happens to be with the NDP.

That doesn't make this a left-leaning issue, just a matter of coincidence. Some of our greatest opponents in this debate come from various creator "unions", and some of the strongest supporters are right-leaning supporters of tangible property rights http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

I hope tangible property rights will trump!

[Russell McOrmond]

I hope that tangible property rights will trump the business models of special interest groups.

Petition to protect Information Technology property rights
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

The problem thus far is that politicians have been believing the "theft is theft" rhetoric from the special interest groups http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_Debate , not adequately realizing that these groups are opponents of tangible property rights.

Eventually the public will understand the technology behind this policy, and recognize who the anti-property/anti-capitalist special interest groups really are. (Hint: They use acronyms like RIAA/CRIA, MPAA/CMPDA, BSA/CAAST, etc).