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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."
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
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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.
I guess there's got to be some advantage to having an election every 18 months...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
Where are those bank memos we were promised?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
You put the vote off on these laws until after the election.. So everybody will forget by the next election. They could've passed it without serious consequence.. Hell, nobody's protesting the wars. You think anybody gives a damn about this?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
They still need to be worried about this. The Conservatives won't be getting my vote next week specifically because of DMCA 2.0 (and the Internet snooping and censoring that is certain to follow).
...actually works out fine for Canada in the last couple years. Conservatives are concerned about losing votes and decide not to bring most controversial issues to the table (e.g. abortion, same-sex marriage), knowing that the oppositions can bring down the government at any time they like. On the other hand, oppositions do not obstruct legislation or stop the government from getting things done because they are also concerned about the votes. With a majority, the Canadian DMCA would have passed with ease.
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.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nice to get this before we go to the Polls!
It's a bit more complicated. I believe the pressure to do something is coming mostly from the US, citing treaties canada has signed on copyright-enforcement alliances. So right now, Canada isn't living up to its treaty obligations. Unfortunately, I don't know much about those obligations. So hell, I could be wrong on that actually. I'm all for avoiding DMCA-like law. I'm just saying the politicians may be in a bit of a tough spot trying to satisfy both the people and the existing treaty obligations. Often stuff like this is held hostage before other agreements can be made. So it could cost Canada in terms of completely unrelated trade issues.
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.
All these comments about majority or minority governments, who's the better or worse person to lead the government, the question I'd ask from this Wikileaks document is why is the minister reporting to the U.S. Ambassador about the difficulty of getting such a piece of legislation passed? Why are we reporting to the U.S. Ambassador about our internal matters at all.
If they have that much control over our Parliament then why the hell don't we just cede Canada to the U.S. and let them work out what to do with Quebec?
...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).
Read Pynchon.
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.
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.
You obviously want to vote NDP this election but just don't know it yet. One of the things on Jack Layton's platform is election reform, specifically proportional representation which is exactly what you want. With proportional representation, issues won't be "rounded-out" by arbitrary dividing areas up into ridings. National issues say with about 10% interest will get 10% power in Parliament. Not swept under the rug as-is now because the member you want to vote for is half-way across the country and there isn't enough interest in your area to have someone on your ballot. Vote the NDP in, get the election system fixed and then vote as you will. Layton has a PhD in Political Science if you read that article by the way so he knows where the rough spots are.
Of course, voting in the NDP to fix the election system takes foresight to see that you can vote in the next election for whoever you want with a better system. Most voters don't want/can't see beyond one election so it's a difficult proposition to push.
Shh.
Does it seem with the wording of the cable that Canada is expected to fall into line with whatever the US would like?
There also seems to be a minor tone of irritation when 'the public' and 'Michael Geist' is mentioned.
Damn you pesky citizens of a sovereign nation, getting in the way of our plans for your country...
Seeing it explicitly laid out like that is just, well, disturbing.
At least they listened for once.
The only reason it couldn't be passed was we have always had minority governments when they tried to introduce it multiple times.
Monday could bring a Majority Conservative government and whatever DMCA industry lobbyist ask for in short order. :(
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.
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".
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.
There-in lies my biggest issue with the whole thing. Not only are the politicians who are pushing for this garbage selling out Canadians to corporate interests, they can't even be bothered to sell us out to _CANADIAN_ corporations. They're selling us out to corporate America. It's so profoundly disgusting that it boils my blood. These ... people can't even be bothered to be patriotic while the screw us over...
Seriously, if the Conservatives win a majority in this coming election, I think I would cry...
Yeah, he was lying about being American. That makes a whole lot of sense. That's why he wrote in American English, knows about American economics and politics, and has a deep passion for American policy. He was lying because. . .well, who knows? But you know it's true because. . .he didn't fit a stereotype? Sure, there may be more Americans than any other nationality on Slashdot, but it's not exactly where you go to find stereotypical Americans. If you want an American stereotype go to a truck stop or a Wal-Mart.
Part of the whole 'land of the free' thing is that one is free to have their own opinion. Even if it's self-depricating and wishes ill on the country as a whole.
Side note: Almost all Americans want it to get worse. The Republicans want things to get worse so they have an excuse to shrink the government by way of massive cuts (Bush burned all that cash for a reason). That's their goal and the only way to achieve it is for the government to be in a financial crisis. It worked! The Democrats want it to get worse. Quality of life, even for the poorest Americans, is good enough so that most don't complain and don't see the need for a big education or health care overhaul. Until things get worse socialized medicine is a dream. Until it gets worse, no one will see the value of education and therefore no one will want their tax money to fund it. Independents want it to get worse. Until the Democrats and Republicans screw things up much worse than they already have, the old Simpsons line of, "Go ahead, vote independent, throw your vote away!" will ring true.
Everyone wants things to get worse because no one has a solution for our current problems without making it worse. The majority is far too complacent to care and will continue to be so until things get worse. Until the economic problems, the government spending, the piss-poor education and health care, and lobbyist-centric government interfere with the average American's life in a way they understand (the hard part: it's one thing to understand that you can't find a job, understanding why is difficult -- especially with the talking heads on TV all making sensationalist claims and that's where people turn for their 'information'), then nothing will change.
The foundation isn't solid. The house has to be taken down to repair it. But it will never happen as long as 'socialist' is a dirty word in this country.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I work in Aerospace myself!
Sadly, The US does not refine any of the raw materials used to make airplanes, with exception to the petrochemical side. The US has maybe 2 functional steel mills, and a handful of aluminum plants... Nearly all of our raw materials are sourced overseas. We dont produce nearly enough raw material for the combined consumption needs of our populace.
If the US Dollar tanked severely, we would be unable to acquire the raw materials to produce anything, and the factories we DO have would sit empty. Those that somehow stay open would have to charge absurd prices.
That is why we prop up the US dollar with intellectual properties licensing, and with military might.
Incidentally, it is also why we are becoming more and more like a police state.