Slashdot Mirror
"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.
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.
We already pay a special tax on blank DVDs and CDs because of "pirating". If the government passes this bill, do you think they would axe this tax? Would they be required to?
It's going to take more than one party to pass this. So no matter what party your MP belongs to, let them know you are most definitely not amused. And other parties *have* had a hand in this before.
I've always worried about the ramifications of discouraging people from tinkering, innovation and creative thinking. What happens to a technical creative process go when people are scared of doing something against the law? What does fear to do a creative mind, and what does it mean to our younger generation, and the future of our country?
So if you care, please inform others about this, and encourage them to follow through on making themselves heard... no matter who their favorites in parliament are.
(Love Make magazine's motto: void your warranty).
In the US, if you have a DVD designed not to play on your computer (you play it in Windows Media Player and it comes up as cannot play due to copyright restriction) and you watch it in VLC, if the Movie Studios found out, they could successfully sue you cause you bypassed DRM.
If the Canadian people were able to get the previous attempt stopped, then they also have the power to get some things back. Perhaps it is time for the Canadian people to get some copyright and related laws reformed. First should be to get rid of this ridiculous blank media tax scam. If there are uses that do not include copying movies and music, then the law is unjust and unfair. Clearly, it is and needs to be reversed retroactively... copyright groups need to give the money back.
Why stop at getting a new law blocked? Take it all back.
The answer is to get a counter proposal in via amendments such as the following:
This is unlikely to succeed this time round, but if people gradually begin to learn about it and understand the benefits of such changes then it may succeed eventually. Getting that kind of thing into the debate will make the lobbyists try to close it down really quickly.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
If you want to get politically active, a political party is needed.
Pirate Party of Canada www.pirateparty.ca
The Pirate Party will NEVER have enough clout to spread it's message. All they will succeed in doing is splitting the vote even more.
What we need is a Centrist party that will actually LISTEN to Canadians as a whole. I'm tired of all this slightly left, slightly right crap we've got.
We also need to start pushing the Senate to do their jobs as the "house of sober second thought" and block bills like this from ever passing because they erode the rights of the citizens of this country in order to protect corporations (mostly based outside of this country).
It's time our politicians started serving US!
Any government that proposes the same bullshit twice is out. That should have prevented the European Constitution to be forced down our throats after we rejected it firmly.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
You know something? Those of us who have moderate views on copyright protection have tried suggesting all sorts of moderations like this.
I know of no country where a single one of them has been implemented. Yet I know of lots of countries which have enacted absurd "just shy of perpetual copyright, any attempt to break it is a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment and silly fines" laws. Clearly the copyright holders are asking for silly things and getting them.
We need to ask why that is. Is it because nobody is contacting their representative to say "hang on a minute here..."? Or is it because the arguments we put forward are viewed as being so pathetically weak that they may as well be ignored? 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.
We need to ask why that is. Is it because nobody is contacting their representative to say "hang on a minute here..."? Or is it because the arguments we put forward are viewed as being so pathetically weak that they may as well be ignored? 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.
Or is it because we the public aren't really able to provide any serious kickbacks compared to big business? Well actually we do pay a lot already in taxes, but we don't really get any say in where our money goes. I never vote in general elections - IMO it's almost entirely pointless - but I would certainly vote on individual issues if given the chance.
I understand that a lot of people out there are dumb fucks and that if the complete running of the country was left to public opinion then it could screw things up a lot, but I would like to be able to vote in a more finely grained manner on several topics. Writing damn letters to people all the time whining about everything I don't like doesn't sound like a very good use of my time either, I'd be sat there for the rest of my life just writing and complaining. And my letters would probably go unnoticed in the piles of other letters from other people complaining about asinine things. IMO we need national online polling systems. No more stupid, inefficient, buggy, paper ballots. I'm sure it'll happen eventually, maybe not in my lifetime though..
which is totally what she said