Wikileaks Says Public Forced Canadian DMCA Delay

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist reports that a new WikiLeaks cable confirms that the Canadian Conservative government delayed introducing a Canadian DMCA in early 2008 due to public opposition. The US cable notes confirmation came directly from then-Industry Minister Jim Prentice, who told US Ambassador David Wilkins that cabinet colleagues and Conservative MPs were worried about the electoral implications of copyright reform."

Comments

Well

[Samalie]

At least they listened for once.

Of course, if our politicians actually, you know, GAVE A FUCK, then they wouldn't have re-introduced the same tired shit. But hey, once at least the court of public opinion stopped a politician from being, well, a lying scumbag asshole politician

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah. That's because the government was a minority government. It makes government much more responsive to the public than they would be in a majority situation. The politicians worry about what the public thinks because an election could happen at any time. It's like having them on a short leash. I love it.

Thank goodness we've had successive minority governments or they would have rammed DMCA-style legislation through at some point regardless of public opposition. And I have to give the previous governments that have introduced these copyright bills to parliament a tiny bit of credit -- slowly the bills are getting less bad with each iteration. Maybe the next one will finally be a proper balance.

I'm also glad that politicians worry about on-line and other public activities regarding these issues. Good. They should worry. They're supposed to be listening to all of us, not only commercial interests.

[raises glass] Here's hoping for another minority government, regardless of who wins the election on Monday.

Re:Well

[The Archon V2.0]

Harper certainly cares about being re-elected. That's why he's willing to screw with the system and try esoteric garbage like proroguing in an effort to keep his crap from catching up with him, and then blame yet another expensive election on the other parties because they refused to kowtow to him and that makes the government's fall the fault of the evil opposition.

Re:Well

[ToasterMonkey]

You know, this actually is somewhat promising news. It means that, if the Tories gauged it right, this is enough of an issue for the voting public to keep it from becoming law. Either they're worried about voters getting pissed off at new copyright restrictions, or they realize that bowing to international pressure from the US makes them look weak, which their rivals won't hesitate to exploit.

They will just wait until after elections to vote on things like these. TFS even says "delay". They WILL vote on this! Anyone who even peripherally follows politics knows how divisive issues wax and wane during election cycles to attract moderates. In this case, younger voters. Sorry to burst your bubble, but they are after swing voters, it's not that your opinion is particularly popular.

For the love of God folks, read real fucking news!

Re:Well

[thirty-seven]

They will just wait until after elections to vote on things like these.

The point of the poster to whom you replied is that, as long as there is a minority government in place, they will hopefully be held back from introducing some version of a DMCA by public opinion and a fear that it would cost the governing party at election time. Because in a minority government situation, there isn't really a significant amount of time "between" elections. You might be back in an election just six months after the previous one, so it's not a situation where you can pass unpopular legislation right after an election and then expect that it will be largely forgotten by the electorate at the next election in four years.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

"If that was Stephen Harper being responsive to the public during a minority, let God have mercy on our souls if he ever gets a majority."

Yes, while I agree with you, I honestly don't think *any* of our current main parties deserve a majority, least of all the Conservatives. When I think what any of the 3 main parties would do with majority power, I think minority government -- ANY minority government -- is the best place to be.

I don't care if we have minority governments for the next decade, even if that means we have elections more frequently. But I do want them to get the message that if they don't play nice in parliament together, we'll take it out of their hides (i.e. whichever parties play less nicely will get less seats to work with). In that respect, yeah, I hope it's a minority government by a party other than Mr. Harper's, because his behavior has been increasingly bad. The prorogation was ridiculous. Judging by some of his comments on coalitions being "undemocratic", that guy doesn't even understand Canadian parliamentary democracy. Heck, the UK, from which our parliamentary system is derived, *is* in a coalition right now, and there has been a coalition government before in Canada too. Wait, but I know Harper knows this. He's not ignorant. Thus it is apparent the guy will say any damn fool thing in an attempt to get re-elected. On top of that, he doesn't like answering questions from the media? Too damn bad. It's one of the ways you communicate with the electorate. It's your JOB to talk to the media. You're supposed to answer tough questions, not evade questions entirely. I especially liked the way he repeated his answers in English and in French after the leader's debate in order to get away with answering only 3 questions from the reporters. Hell, even Giles Duceppe answered questions posed in English in English, and questions posed in French in French, and thereby answered more than twice as many as Harper did. The contempt with which he treats his audience is pathetic.

Anyway, obviously I reveal my preference, but I'd still take yet another Conservative minority government with Harper over any kind of majority government. Yes, it took a long time, but with 2 failed copyright reformed bills, even his government seems to be getting the message, which is indeed an accomplishment. I have to give them credit for waking up to the fact that, yes, Canadians actually do care about copyright reform and the details of it. I still remember Prentice, who presented the copyright bill, standing up there like a deer in the headlights when a reporter asked him why Canadians should be pleased about new rights for format shifting if they couldn't excise those rights because breaking the "digital locks" in those same DVDs would be illegal. Priceless!

You know. I think it would teach Harper a lesson to have to slink back to parliament with a minority and have to try to get along with the other parties again after he's slagged them so severely during the whole campaign. Talk about burning your bridges. He obviously thought from the pre-election polls that he was within reach of a majority and didn't have to care about them any more, and while the election results aren't counted and it's fair to say a lot is possible, I don't think he's getting the majority he was hoping for. Again.

And if he wins a majority? Uh, I'm moving to the USA. (Just kidding)

Re:Well

[mmontour]

Harper is one of the worst "We're doing it MY FUCKING WAY!" politicians we've had in YEARS, and that's WITH a minority.

I was amused by a recent Conservative attack ad that accused Jack Layton of being "desperate for power" and "blindly ambitious". They've certainly been taking lessons from the US NeoCons - look at your own guy's biggest flaws and then accuse your opponents of it.

Beholden to the Public They Serve

[Ruke]

I'd sure be nice if politicians were this concerned with passing legislature that their constituents supported all of the time, instead of only during election season.

NZ Govt is more efficent

[BiggerIsBetter]

They just pass it under urgency in the evening with about one day of notice to the public.

Surely what WikiLeaks is really saying is something we all know: The governments of the world no longer act for the people of their countries.

Help me out here, I have a problem understanding

[Opportunist]

So there's an issue that is sufficiently unpopular that they even fear they'd lose an election over it if they implemented it before the election? Hell, not even tax hikes have that effect! To some degree, most people understand that taxes have a reason to exist, some even welcome them, while most accept them as a necessary evil.

But a DMCA would have been an issue that would have cost them the election. Well, clue me in then: If nobody that should matter to a politician (i.e. the people possibly electing him) wants it, who does he actually represent? The people? Obviously, he does not.

Re:Some advantages...

[Digital Vomit]

Right, because deregulating an industry is a "great" idea. *rollseyes*

The problem with the CRTC is not that it exists, but that it is a captured regulator. It is a regulatory body controlled by the industry it's supposed to regulate.

Re:The rule is

[Altrag]

People tend to give more of a damn about things that affect them directly than things happening in other countries. Even if the "other country" thing is comparatively horrific (as in the case of copyright here vs war and killing there).

Whether anyone knows this is happening or understands the consequences is a much bigger concern. The media and other copyright promoters do everything in their power to convince everyone that "we've got to stop the pirates" when in reality most of what they're doing will have little to no impact on pirates but will affect average users severely.

Take a really simple example. How many pirates bother watching the 2-minute (per language up here in Canada!) FBI/Interpol warning on their movies? Probably very few -- its either stripped off or at least the "unskippable" flag is removed on almost every torrent. Yet legitimate viewers have to watch the thing over and over and over again.

And don't even start on those DVDs where they decided to mark the ads and previews as unskippable.

Or all of those various CD "protection" hacks in the late 90s/early 2000s that did little more than prevent the discs from playing on older (legitimate) CD players. Yet it didn't stop them from showing up on Napster within a day or two of release.

Re:Help me out here, I have a problem understandin

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people welcome them on other people (not just donks -- I wish everyone would pay the 20% that I do). When I was poor(er) and qualified for all kinds of credits that pushed my effective tax rate down to single digits, I thought they were reasonable. I'm sure the 47% of people that pay no income tax (especially if they get a refund) welcome them.

When I was a college student, I used to get refunds, and that made sense, I had no extra money. Now I'm at a high bracket, and I'm happy with paying my taxes. If I'm well-off enough to be in a higher bracket, that means that I can't complain...I have a lot more spending money than I did in college, and actually have savings for retirement! Obviously taxes are not ruining my life.

That said, although I'm all for contributing to needed services, I don't want my money wasted on pork. So I very much support government transparency and decreased spending. If the decreased spending leads to lower taxes, yay. Lower taxes leading to cuts in needed programs, that's not so good.

And yes, the problem is that nobody can agree on which programs are the ones we need and which ones are the ones that are pork. There is no perfect solution.

I hope people get the message...

[caitsith01]

...which is that if you do actually take an interest and make enough noise, you CAN scare politicians enough to actually do their jobs, which is representing you rather than representing large corporations.

This information should galvanize further actions against DMCA style laws (and all bad laws, for that matter).

Re:Help me out here, I have a problem understandin

[wierd_w]

Politicians, like all power figures, are innately tied to the influences of power. In this case, a powerful nation to the south, which has powerful incentive to push intellectual poison on the rest of the world to prop itself up. [yes, I am a citizen of that powerful country, but I can see the handwriting on the wall. The US has no real manufacturing infrastructure. Our agribiz infrastructure is no longer first rate in the world market, and our last strongholds for world relevency are intellectual property and military might. Without IP, I believe we would crumble like the former soviet union, due to the shortsighted practices of our corporations who have no sense of national loyalty, only loyalty to money-- and our politicians who are loyal to those corporations, and not the voting public. As such, the US is a sinking ship, with bandaids over huge holes of economic policy, and bilge pumps of government bailouts running 24/7. It is NOT sustainable.]

This whole issue with "Worldwide DMCA" would dissolve rapidly if [when] the USA finally tanks. Without the US to make a fuss over it, the corporations would be unable to leverage such global policy positions on the rest of the world, and the effort would suffer huge spirals of inefficiency as every little government everywhere suddenly had the 300lb gorilla with the billy club removed from the parlament floor, and politicians had golden parachute cords cut.

As suicidal as it seems, what is best for the WORLD right now is for my country to suffer the consequences of its own complacency, and to deminish-- in profound and spectacular fashion.

Props to the people of Canada for telling my government to shove it. I love you guys.

Random Complaint

[Fractal Dice]

Wikileaks: the election has been running for a month now. Waiting until four days before the election to start to release a tidal wave of revelant documents (and only the unclassified documents with mostly common sense stuff) feels like a bit of an ambush. We're a rational democracy (more or less), we'd like same time to digest and debate issues rather than being forced to assimilate everything in a weekend.

Really wasn't responsive, still intro'd it twice

[guidryp]

C-32 was still introduced in 2008:

C-61 was another attempt in 2010:

Both of these died with the Minority government.

You can bet we will quickly get a new one from the new government next week.

If it is a Majority Government, I expect we go whole hog US style copyright, so the lawsuits will start destroying the lives of Canadians for file sharing...

If it is a Minority Government, the bill will need to have significant concessions for Canadian citizens to get passed by the Opposition parties.

Fingers crossed for a Minority.

Re:Help me out here, I have a problem understandin

[ljgshkg]

Well, there're lots more issues/trade relations between Canada and USA than just oil. We have all those lumbering businesses and many more. And most of our exports goes to USA. They're in some way holding our throat. If they act against us in other DMCA-unrelated issues, that can affect a huge number of people. Canada has a very small population, our current economy relies on USA a lot more than what many people might think.

Talking about oil, you do notice we ship our oil to US to process, and then get the final product back from them at a much higher cost eh. We have the oil, but ironically, we're the real "oil importer", and they're the actual "oil exporter".

Re:Vote NDP!

[theshowmecanuck]

You missed my point. What I am concerned about is NOT proportional representation. That is the least of our worries. I want representational democracy. I want my MP to be able to vote his/her own mind, not be told by the party leader how to vote . Once our representatives can actually represent us, and not their party leader back at us, then we can worry about improving how we get them there.

If Layton said he would introduce a constitutional amendment that all votes in Parliament (house and senate) were to be truly free votes, then I would vote for him. Proportional representation is not the same as representative democracy. They may be related, but they are not the same. Don't get me wrong, the Instant Run Off Voting is OK, and I would agree to it. IROV is the version of Single Transferable Vote system that we would use in Canadian elections; since we only have one winner for each riding election.