"Canadian DMCA" Rising From the Dead

mandelbr0t writes "The Canadian Conservative government is preparing to reintroduce amended copyright legislation on Thursday (we discussed the rumor some weeks ago). Most sources say that the proposed legislation is very similar to Bill C-61, generally dubbed the 'Canadian DMCA.' It still includes definitions of 'technological protections' and criminalizes 'circumvention' of those protections. Bill C-61 died in the summer of 2008, facing massive opposition from the Canadian public. Once again, it's time for Canadians to get politically active; ORC ran a large campaign with the last attempt, and will likely be updated soon with the new proposed legislation." Read below for more of the submitter's thoughts on the coming battle.
As with Bill C-61, the Conservative government has launched a campaign of misinformation to attempt to force the law down our throat. Industry Minister Tony Clement is trying to convince people that "format shifting" is currently illegal. Of course, it is not actually criminal, and enforcement of private infringement, as always, is prevented by the fact that massive invasion of privacy would have to occur. Second, Mr. Clement is claiming that this law is necessary to bring Canada into line with the WIPO Treaty. The above readings discredit WIPO altogether. Furthermore, the two articles that are being referred to are Articles 11 and 12. Note the use of the phrase "effective technological measure" and the absence of any criminality requirement. This legislation is not necessary to provide amended copyright law that is consistent with the WIPO treaty, and will hopefully die an uneventful death, to be buried for eternity.

Comments

Why it will win eventually

[RandomFactor]

Bad law can fail a thousand times, but it only needs to pass once.

Re:Why it will win eventually

[Znork]

Bear in mind that copyright holders are using economics arguments

Copyright holders have very few valid economic arguments; the economic effects of copyright are fundamentally equivalent to any other taxation scheme. Claiming that more copyright is better for the economy is equivalent to claiming more tax is better for the economy.

The more likely flow of argument is that industry goon tells USTR representative that more copyright is good for him, then the USTR threatens various countries, who cave in as handing money to the industry goon is cheaper than fighting trade wars.

Of course, the main reason they get away with that is because IPR funding isn't accounted for in state budgets as it's an externally gathered tax. Had the actual state budget had a '"insurance" payoffs to the MAFIAA so nothing "happens" to our trade status' line it might have been a bit harder to motivate.

Re:Why it will win eventually

[metacell]

Bear in mind that copyright holders are using economics arguments, which are always going to be perceived as being much stronger than "I don't like this law because I don't think it's very nice" arguments.

It's ironic you should say that, because economic arguments are the strongest arguments against copyright.

For example, there is no doubt that copyright terms are far, far too long to be beneficial to society. One or two decades is more than enough to give creators an incentive to create; having longer copyright terms than necessary will only prevent society from enjoying the full benefits of the works already created. (Read Against Intellectual Monopoly for more economic arguments.)

It's mostly a matter of lobbying. For example, here in the EU, record companies approached politicians with scary-sounding numbers of how much the industry loses on pirating, explained how many people would lose their jobs if it continued, and got an extension to the copyright of music performances. So now Elvis Presley's recordings are kept out of the public domain for a few more decades (yes, the copyright to Elvis Presleys recordings are held by a German music company). The politicians themselves were too uninformed to see through the layers of bullshit.

Re:I wonder if they will cut the tax...

[cosm]

If the government passes this bill, do you think they would axe this tax? Would they be required to?

IANAC, but from experience here in the US, once a tax is in effect, it is like a cancer. All it does is grow, and no matter what you do to get rid of it, it usually pops back up in one form or another.

Re:please be broad-minded

[grelmar]

The current state of the political scene is working against the Conservatives here, so hopefully this will die another death.

The NDP will vote against this as a matter of policy. Heavy handed copyright just doesn't fit with their philosphy, and they know they would be in deep trouble with their core supporters if they played nice with the Conservatives on this. There really isn't any middle ground for them on this.

The Grits, in theory, could go either way. They've tried to push through copyright reform when they were in power as well (an failed). But they're lagging in the pols, so I would suspect they'll take the expedient, populist route (in fine Grit tradition) to try and close the gap a bit. Iggy's an academic, and the academic circles are almost universally opposed to this reform, so it would fit with his background to oppose the legislation. It might just be the podium he's been waiting to pound on the get some good press for a change.

The Bloq... Aww, heck, who knows. I suspect they'll oppose this just for the populist support in Quebec, but you never know. The Bloq is brutally unpredictable when it comes to national policy.

Overall, I'd say the chance of this passing is 51/49 against. But it's slim. If the Tories make this a confidence vote, it will really put the other parties against the wall, because a snap election works in the Tories' favour at the moment.

Re:What happened to the public consultation?

[Errol backfiring]

I don't think so.

Forgive me my pessimism, but I do. Public consultations are meant to influence public opinion, not to actually ask the people anything. When the European Constitution was rejected, the politician's reaction was that they "apparently had not explained it enough", not off course that the people were in any way right. For a politician, the people are only right when they elect your party or share your exact point of view, and wrong in any other case.