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Lobby Groups Launch Full Assault For Canadian DMCA
An anonymous reader writes "Bill C-61, the previous attempt at a Canadian DMCA, may have failed, but it is clear that the music, movie, and business software industries are engaged in putting massive pressure on the Canadian government to bring it back. Lobbying records show several meetings each week with Government Ministers for CRIA, CMPDA, and Microsoft over the past month. Meanwhile, the CRIA is preparing a grassroots campaign in support of new copyright laws, even claiming that the current rules are costing jobs to truck drivers delivering CDs and DVDs."
even claiming that the current rules are costing jobs to truck drivers delivering CDs and DVDs.
You know what costs jobs? Technological change -- it's a good thing.
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
If these media companies keep this shit up, I think a lot of creative people will stop providing them with content.
It would be fun to form a mass co-op type business, pool everyone's cash and buy up as many band contracts as possible just to keep them off the major labels.
Maybe its time for a global over arching consumer group on a par with RIAA, to coordinate a global push back. RIAA and its associated entities besides having the cash have better global coordination. There seem to be disparate consumer type groups that operate country by country, lacking cash and proper media profiles... Just a though anyway
A number of popular names have started doing that already. Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, and lots more.
I woke up this morning and ate a piece of toast. Five people simultaneously died in Japan. Eating toast kills Japanese people.
In all seriousness, technology marches on. The number of folks earning a living building horse drawn carriages dropped off sharply with the advent of mass-produced automobiles.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
yes, perfect system indeed.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I say they should encourage piracy to make sure the lawyers always have work.
Mind you if I have to choose between truck drivers and lawyers...
Sam "to lazy to register" Look
I hail from Saskatchewan, Canada. The general public here (farmers) could be gullible enough to believe that those newfangled bit-torrent do-hickeys are contributing to the trucking industry's troubles.
Stop funding them. More and more artists are starting to see the light - that even if they give away their new albums online, and make their money via live concerts, they will *still* make more than they are through these usurious contracts they have with Big Media, Inc.
If people would just stop buying RIAA-produced crap (and stop stealing it!), the problem would eventually solve itself. It's no secret that they'll need to be dragged kicking and screaming back to this thing we all know as 'reality,' but it's gotta happen sooner or later. Right now we're just prolonging the agony for everyone.
I don't know if paying an extra tax on recordable media counts as a "system that works."
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Fewer trucks on the road and fewer CDs being smelted cannot possibly be a bad thing in the big picture. Not a big impact but would positive contribution if it was not BS trying to pass a law.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
Oh I completely agree!
I think the other bonus now is that artists are (or will) be working harder at making a whole album again since people CAN buy single songs on iTunes/online now. Live show are getting better again too. I detect more effort being put into live shows now at ALL levels of musical fame. The whole concept of playing live only because you are supporting and promoting an album is pretty silly for most types of music anyway.
I can definitely think of reasons they wouldn't help in Canada, not the least of which is an entirely different legal framework within which to fight, where the US constitution does not apply and your legal rights are different (greater in some areas, lesser in others).
But, anyway, they do support a Canadian organization:
http://www.onlinerights.ca/
Not formally affiliated but they are more or less the Canadian equivalent. The EFF defends rights in the US constitution which simply do not (legally) apply in Canada. The EFC defends those laid out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
That said, both of the organisations come with baggage that is not really related to the RIAA (for example, Warrantless Wiretapping). If you want to support them in opposition to the RIAA, make sure they don't disagree with you on some important principle. This goes generally for any activist or charity cause, but I feel it's important to call out that it's not a single-issue organisation.
the levy system most certainly doesn't work. you end up paying for something you don't want. I, for example don't ever wish to purchase a top 40 cd. but due to the levy system if i purchased a blank cd in canada my money would be funneled directly to the very people i don't want it to even through i've never downloaded anything that belongs to them.
yes, perfect system indeed.
Conversly, after buying blank CDs I remember to go download big label music.
I know for a fact that stricter copyright laws will NOT be saving any jobs in the trucking industry.
Well, shipping bits pressed into plastic disks on the highways in trucks certainly requires more truckers than delivering those same bits over the net, but the point here is that truckers hauling disks around are a misallocation of transportation capabilities. You can't ship lumber and washing machines over the net, so it makes more sense for truckers to be hauling those goods instead.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Signing the treaty doesn't create the obligation, it's ratifying it that does. Canada signed those treaties, but hasn't ratified them. It's like the US position regarding the Kyoto Protocol, or the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: signed, but not ratified, so not bound by the terms of the treaty.
Thank god no Americans died because of your toast, or you'd be a terrorist!
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Especially the bulky boxes and advertising that go with those disks. And especially when the first few patches are actually _larger_ than the original disks.
I would love to see all game and software distribution restricted to standard CD case size, just for enironmental reasons. I can see having a recyclable plastic case to protect it, but who needs those artifically long DVD boxes?
even claiming that the current rules are costing jobs to truck drivers delivering CDs and DVDs."
This is a fun game!
I will see your "jobless CD and DVD delivering truck drivers", and raise you one "dependence on foreign oil funds terrorism". So see, distributing digital material online actually reduces global terrorism and is thus a "goof thing"! Your move.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If these people are having THAT many meetings with government officials, they aren't talking about whether or not it will happen, but HOW it will happen.
It must be stopped. A TV campaign must be put on the air stating what happened in the U.S. and how it was passed and that the same law had failed in Canada but they haven't given up. People need to know what demon they are attempting to give birth to and how it harms the people.
I'm from Saskatchewan, Canada, and there is no way we would believe the trucker's woes are caused by a drop in CD and DVD sales. We all know it's the atheists, causing a decreased demand for bibles. Simple when you think about it.
planet texture maps and more
Yeah, you just want that Money song, they charge you the moon.
I live in Ottawa and want to do something more than write a letter that I know will be ignored to a local MP who I know is not in line with my position anyway. While I'm interested in law & policy as it applies to this domain, it's definitely not in my sphere of knowledge.
Do /.ers have any suggestions about what I can do to fight this, or good ways to raise awareness?
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. -- Wernher von Braun
Maybe someone should tell the CRIA that "grassroots" campaigns coming from paid staffers is called astroturf.
I'm from Saskatchewan, Canada, and somehow we have the only ISP in Canada not thoroughly devoted to screwing the customer. Who would have thought that a government owned telecom would actually end up LESS scummy than the commercial alternatives?
There are far fewer CDs being solde these days,
therefore less truck drivers are needed to ship them.
Blame Brittany Spears, Blame ITunes.
What an inane argument by a clueless government.
Shipping data digitally is so much more cost effective, cheaper, lowers gas consumption (which both lowers emissions, and the pressure on the price of gas).
If the government actually wants to help the citizens who (barely) voted them in, they should ban the physical shipment of anything that could otherwise be sent digitally.
But no, they are clearly in the sway of the media megacorps (none of which are Canadian) for some unknown reason (kickbacks) that they plan to set Canada back years to protect an obsolete business model.
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
You inadvertently bring up another good point, too.
If internet piracy means less trucks on the road, does that make internet piracy environmentally friendly? Would encouraging piracy help Canada fulfil its G20 green commitments?