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Documentary Released On Canadian Fight Against DMCA

Posted by Soulskill on from the during-hockey-season?-they-must-really-be-upset dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The ongoing fight against the Canadian DMCA is the focus of a new documentary film called Why Copyright? Produced by Michael Geist and available as a streamed version, OGG download version, or a torrent, the film features Red Hat founder Bob Young, sci-fi writer Karl Schroeder, the owner of Skylink Technologies (which fought the DMCA garage door opener case) and many other voices from across Canada."

10 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. Will it matter? by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While our voices and people of reasoning will make a good case for not extending the powers of copyright, beyond what they are now, I have to ask will it be enough to make a difference. We just need to look at the UK where proper reasoning was overridden by political and financial gain. Once again its a question of whether it is the governance for the few or the governance for the many.

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    1. Re:Will it matter? by dimeglio · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Great job Michael keep it up!

      It will be interesting to see what will happen in Canada as the governing party is in a minority and likely to be overturned by the centrist coalition if they spit out absurd legislation. However, I think the deeper issue is Canada's commitment to the WIPO treaty. It might be time to review that commitment and ensure it takes into account the new reality of on-line media. Or we could just do like Taiwan and pull-out of the treaty.

      --
      Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
    2. Re:Will it matter? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Or we could just do like Taiwan and pull-out of the treaty.

      What treaty is that? It doesn't sound plausible to me. Taiwan is a bit like Japan - it is very rare to see pirated software here. Also because Taiwan always looks for international recognition of its statehood, it spends lots of time trying to sign treaties since being able to sign treaties is evidence of it is a state as part of the declarative theory of statehood.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  2. Re:okay i'm interested by dword · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes.

  3. Re:Smaller torrent version anywhere? by rhpenguin · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can download a smaller version here. It's a 176MB .MKV file.

    http://www.vuze.com/details/2OQKU47Y56JSCE6RXQ2W5JNDSL3KBEM7.html

    I'm also on Bell for DSL and I'm currently torrenting it at 600KBps.

  4. Re:Preaching to the choir by vally_manea · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A bit off-topic but the OGG works directly in FF 3.1b2 - yaaay no more FLASH!

  5. Re:Smaller torrent version anywhere? by nightfire-unique · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wasn't able to find a smaller version than the 2,92 gigs one (the .torrent on Mininova).

    Since I indirectly use Bell Canada's network, I'm throttled to a max of 30k/s even if this is a legal download. 2,92 gigs feels too much to me when that documentary could probably be nice enough to watch at about 700 megs... If anyone finds or publishes a smaller version, please let me/us know! :-)

    This is a perfect example of political speech being hampered by throttling.

    Net neutrality is mandatory for democracy.

    --
    A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
  6. Re:okay i'm interested by Facetious · · Score: 3, Funny

    You don't understand. Not reading TFA is old hat. The new thing is to not even bother to read TFS. Get with it Grandpa.

    --
    Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
  7. The will of a few overpowers the will of the many by erroneus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is when you know that government is broken. This isn't about compromise or mob rule or sticking up for the rights of minority groups. This is about a select few trampling on the interests of the masses and the erosion of the long-standing deal between creators and their audience that says "we the people will respect your copyright for a fixed term and you will release your work to the public domain when that term has completed." In all our living years, how much of these respected copyrighted works have actually become part of the public domain? Some, but far from a lot. And that bit about "This land is your land" song having already been in the public domain being claimed otherwise only goes to show how broken the abused copyright system actually is.

    A deal related to copyright was made long before we were born and that deal has been held up on one end and altered at the other with NO benefit compensating the people for any changes made.

  8. Re:The will of a few overpowers the will of the ma by sjames · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In all our living years, how much of these respected copyrighted works have actually become part of the public domain?

    Far fewer than the number that disappeared into some out of print catalog until no remaining copy could be found.

    Vearing a bit off topic, the purpose of copyright is *supposed* to be making more works available. So why is it that Disney is allowed to create pent-up demand by putting a work back 'in the Disney vault' as their commercials say, using copyright as a bludgeon to remove works from availability?