Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Gov't Asks Public About New Copyright Law
Mike Lawrie writes "The so-called Canadian DMCA has had a long history. Historically, proposed legislation has favoured the views of CRIA, the Canadian arm of the RIAA almost completely. However, this time around the government is consulting the public before drafting the bill. They have launched a (Linux-based!) website designed to provide a public forum for discussion. Now is the time to speak up."
yeah, enough people are trying to alright. It's already slashdotted.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Don't get too excited just yet. Just because they're soliciting feedback doesn't mean they'll listen to it. More than likely, they'll cherry pick public responses that support what they were going to do anyway, and use them to claim they have "public support".
Canada doesn't need any new laws, copyright law is already established, making illegal copies is already illegal. Why do we need any new laws? If anything, Canada should not have the kind of copyright extensions that we have seen in Europe and USA.
Twinstiq, game news
What to do with copyright? GET RID OF IT. Seriously.
Circumcision is child abuse.
This is the Harper government you understand. This bill's gonna get passed regardless of what people say. Though maybe he's using the 'Linux-based!' website to woo computer nerds to the cause.
'Well he hates the environment, he's plunged the country into a debt our grandchildren will still be burdened with, he hates gays, minorities, the french, socialists, our healthcare system, Ontario, all of eastern Canada, he refuses to give interviews to any Canadian media but frequently appears on Fox news (which we don't get up here), but he likes Linux, so I guess he can't be all that bad!'
And that was the last Terry Fox run I ever participated in.
If I was the CRIA, I would be hiring a bunch people to go online and stear the conversations towards my own agenda. Good thing we slashdotted the website. We have foiled their schemes!
They're doing better than the UK government. Over here, they spend a lot of money getting reports researched and then do the opposite. At least the Canadians aren't wasting much money on finding the opinions to ignore...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
http://copyright.econsultation.ca/topics-sujets/show-montrer/18
Answer the questions and email the responses to the address given.
It does not matter what the government puts forward in a sense. If I remember correctly the last bill was struck down by the courts because they saw the potential for the legal system to be flooded with cases not in the interest of protecting our free and democratic society(might be wrong). They should be getting input from the legal system as well as the public or the same thing will happen again. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
With all their beady little eyes
And flapping heads so full of lies
The site was announced on Friday July 17 with the first consultation for Vancouver scheduled the following Monday July 20.
Typical weasel politics and tactics used by Conservatives.
Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
If you're Canadian and wish to have a positive impact on Copyright, the Pirate Party of Canada may be your cup of tea.
And it tends not to matter who gets the first word; it's all about who has the last word.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Odd. Many Canadians refer to Americans as "Upper Mexicans".
Watch as the entire slashdot community matches wits with a few unsuspecting ordinary passers-by on the forums of the Copyright Consultation webpage!
Of course, any comments you provide to them become their copyrighted material. ;)
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
They may ask the public, but are they actually going to listen to them? Governments have a long history of trying to pacify the unruly mob when government actions are so outrageous as to stir them up, but pacify more often than not appears to mean giving the appearance of caring -- and then going ahead and doing exactly what they intended to do in the first place. That's not even throwing them a bone.
And it works time-after-time because of the short attention span public who keeps reelecting them!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Copyright, like most things, is a contract between artists and society. Originally, the contract was to allow the use of government resources to prevent publishers from reprinting works without paying the artist their due. There is a monetary cost to society in enforcing copyrights, as well as a cost inherent in the monopoly on works granted by copyright. In ages past, the trade-off for this burden to society was being forced to release the works into the public domain after copyright expired, within a reasonable time limit. Further, governments would only enforce copyrights in civil court, it wasn't a criminal issue, and copyright law was limited to the act of copying itself.
This century has seen unprecedented shift in copyright, where copyright owners are seeing more and more rights, with fewer and fewer responsibilities. All Canadians pay taxes on blank media which is handed to the copyright industry. Copyright terms are now several lifetimes long. Now the copyright industry is trying to make the act of copying a criminal offense, and further making peripheral acts illegal and subject to civil and criminal prosecution.
The perpetuity of copyrights is effectively theft of our own culture. "Happy Birthday To You" is a song first written before the second world war, but singing it in public is technically illegal and will be for another generation. Records from the turn of the last century, songs for example written about the depression or the first world war, are illegal to distribute despite the artists who wrote or sang them being long dead. This affected me personally recently when I found someone's amazing record collection with some incredibly interesting songs about life during the depression, but couldn't share any of the unknown songs I found. It won't be long until the records deteriorate completely, and these pieces of our past are gone forever.
Copyright today isn't structured to foster creativity, it's structured to allow companies to build portfolios. The same chilling effect I felt when I wanted to share the old songs with others is felt with artists, musicians, and writers who want to pull from old sources to build upon their own works. When our past culture is stolen, our own present culture becomes transient and loses a lot of value. Scriptwriting would lose tremendously without the works of Shakespeare to draw upon, musicians would lose tremendously without the works of bethoven and bach to draw upon. The current stifling copyright legislation is eradicating more contemporary Shakespeares or Bachs. They disappear into a mist of "Not profitable to sell, not legal to distribute".
Further copyright won't help increase investment in Canada -- Positive conditions for creative workers will, including progressive copyright that allows artists greater freedom to use our history to build their own works. No film company will say "Oh, even though Vancouver is inexpensive to shoot in and very friendly, they haven't criminalised DRM circumvention so we'll go to New York instead".
Ironically, the best thing for everyone would be to continue what was inadvertently started by the copyright industry themselves when they lobbied for the levy on blank media. American film and music companies are now trying to sue their customers into buying media, but this is the worst solution possible -- regular people are finding their lives ruined over a trivial matter, and principled people are no longer buying movies or music because it's unjust to fund such lawsuits. If Canadian laws protected everyone; consumers, new artists, and existing copyright holders, and tried to create a balance rather than simply creating a draconian wall of legislation, I think we'd see more creativity coming from Canada, which would draw the global digital economy into our borders to leverage our talented engineers, technicians, writers, artists, and musicians in a way that more restrictive countries wouldn't enjoy.
It's been a long time.
Maybe South Park the musical was to long ago? Today's moderators don't know they're born....
I don't think I've seen any other government websites that don't use the .gc.ca domain. Why is this different I wonder.
We don't know. They may not know yet either. Whatever the case, it is essential to take place in the consultation.
Consider the possibilities: a) the consultation is in good faith and they plan to listen, or b) they intend to ignore what people say and use this as cover for a warmed-over imitation of the DMCA.
In case a) participation is obviously worthwhile: the more we consult, the closer the legislation will be to what we want. And we give them political cover. When big media and the U.S. trade representative come demanding their DMCA, the government can throw their hands in the air and say, "the Canadian people made it clear to us we had no political alternative."
In case b), participation is also worthwhile - perhaps even more so. The more people push for a reasonable law the more political capital they will have to spend if they wish to go against our wishes. Tens of thousands of people protested when C-61 was introduced; next time around the number will be even greater. And when we rise up, we will be able to say, "look, we participated in good faith - but you ignored us."
Consider the alternative. If we do not participate in the process, the government can do whatever it likes and say it did so with our consent. Any protest movement against a bad bill will be neutered before it begins. "You claim to represent Canadians," the media will say, "but where were they when there was consultation?"
This does not mean we should lose our skepticism. We need to hold them to account. At this point, that means hitting them with feedback from as many Canadians as we can.
By the way, I represented Vancouver Fair Copyright at the Vancouver roundtable on Monday. I am not sure how significant it was, but many of the participants were in favor if sensible reforms like simplification of the law, flexible fair dealing, reduction or elimination of crown copyright, and no blanked ban on circumvention of DRM. The proponents of draconian law have the inside track with the government, but there is a point at which sufficient numbers of ordinary Canadians, if they take part and express themselves, can outweigh the special interests pushing for a bad law.
hope it reaches its intended audience.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Don't get too excited just yet. Just because they're soliciting feedback doesn't mean they'll listen to it.
Exactly. They are doing this because bill C-61 was heavily critisiced for not soliciting public opinon. But it's already clear they have no intention to listen. Monday's "Public Copyright Forum" in Vancouver was announced the Thursday before - giving 4 days notice. It was also announced on twitter(?!?!).
They then spontaneously changed the time from 12:45 to 11:00 or something like that. It was over when I showed up.
The e-mail address for submission ends with .gc.ca: info@copyrightconsultation.gc.ca So, it's going to end up somewhere in there at least :)
The freedom to write and speak with impunity, is either the sign of the extreme kindness of the prince, or of the profound slavery of people, Only are permitted to speak the ones who can do nothing.
...and striving for a balance in copyright/patent law will never work. Copyright started out with a reasonable term and scope. It has steadily and gradually pushed out to the obnoxius abuse of law and culture that it is now. Having a copyright system will always encourage rent seeking behavior. Copyright holders will fight tooth and nail to extend and expand it. They are still doing that now even with the draconian policies they have managed to buy/coerce from our law makers. The only solution is to eliminate it all together.
Also, the idea that people will stop creating art if they can't controll the distribution of it is absurd. People have always created art and always will. We might not get the blockbuster movies that we do now, but having recently been subjected to the travesty that is "Transformers: 2", I think that could be a good thing.
That's not off topic. It's the last post in that thread.
Err ... crap.
"Good news, everyone!"