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Tech Companies Say Don't Blame Canada For Copyright Problems
An anonymous reader writes "The Computer & Communications Industry Association, which includes a who's-who of the tech world, including Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Fujitsu, AMD, eBay, Intuit, Oracle, and Yahoo, has issued a strong defense of current Canadian copyright law, arguing that the US is wrong to place Canada on the annual Special 301 list. The submission argues that the US should not criticize Canada for not implementing anti-circumvention rules (PDF) and warns against using the Special 301 process to 'remake the world in the image of the DMCA.'"
I love the fact that I can download copy written content without penalty as long as I don't redistribute it... Fuckin' eh!!
Geeks don't grock information, they grep it.
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Where are these companies when it comes to US legislation?
Well, you better have a pretty catchy song and dance to go with that message ...
I vaguely remember at primary school, the use of friends/enemies lists in the ongoing process of classroom politics.
Apparently some people never grow out of classroom politics, and go on to become actual politicians. "Canada can't come to my birthday party."
But they've left out all of the dumb, anti-consumer portions that increasingly blight US law. How DARE they!
I hope the Canadians put us on a "Special Douche Bag" list
Gotta love our ability to spit on our friends
My personal opinion, as a Canadian, is that copyright regulation such as in the USA is insane. With that in mind I am proud of my Government for resisting the tide. There is a balance that needs to be drawn somewhere, I do not believe it is where industry in the USA would like it to be. With this in mind, let the USA go all hysterical: as the pendulum swings around with other parties such as my Government providing some balance the theory, and hope, is that it will eventually settle somewhere sane.
Shh.
Michael Geist's Blog - Dr. Geist is a law professor who takes a rather dim view of the constant calls to make copyright law more strict.
The Pirate Party of Canada - a small concern now, only about 100 card-carrying members, but it's not going to get any bigger (or reach the point where it's officially a party) if people don't get involved and at least send a bit of money their way to get over the legal hurdles. ($10 membership fee).
When I was younger, 40 odd years ago, I used to wonder why America was considered a bastion of freedom. Possession of certain plants were highly illegal, being a communist was illegal, kids who went to the States for a year of schooling came back with stories about having to swear allegiance to the flag every day much like in a dictatorship. Black people were finally being allowed to use the same washrooms as white people. They could with a straight face have a constitution which stated all men were equal and allowed slavery.
America always seemed like the ultimate example of successful propaganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Well, first of all, the Constitution doesn't say that all men are created equal; the Declaration of Independence does. (Lots of Americans get those mixed up too.) The former is, in theory the supreme law of the land, while the latter is a document of great moral authority but no legal authority. But yes, it was written by a slaveowner, and that paradox occupied a great deal of the nation's early existence. It kind of came to a head in this little dustup a century and a half ago. Since then, we still haven't fully dealt with the consequences.
The basic problem is, you ask ten different Americans to tell you what "freedom" means, and you'll get eleven different definitions. Some are concerned almost exclusively with economic freedom; as long as they can make money, they're happy, regardless of what else may be going on. Some focus on social freedom: who they sleep with, where (or whether) they worship, what substances they can put in their bodies. Some are concerned primarily with freedom from foreign military threats; pretty much everyone agrees this is a prerequisite for the other freedoms, but there are and always have been many who take their concern with it to fanatical extremes -- they forget that in order to defend our freedom from those who want to take it away, we must have freedom left to defend.
And no matter what kind of freedom people are most worried about, a regrettably large number will say, in effect, "I've got my freedom, screw yours." Thus those fighting for the Confederacy, and their latter-day counterparts in white sheets and pointy hats, could claim in all seriousness that they were fighting for freedom: their freedom, and the fact that preserving their view of freedom meant denying it to large numbers of the people who lived in their society didn't bother them at all. Thus the flag could be defined as the symbol of freedom, and freedom limited to those who wished to pledge allegiance to it. Thus any act, no matter how vile, that was anti-communist could be defined as serving the interests of freedom.
Personally, my definition of freedom includes not only my freedom to do what I want to do, but others' freedom to do what they want to do, including things that I personally have no desire to do. But this definition is far from universally accepted. I don't think this is an exclusively American problem by any means, but it does seem like we're a bit better at others at fooling ourselves into thinking we're implementing a universal definition of freedom, while picking and choosing our freedoms carefully in practice.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.