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Justification For Canadian Copyright Reform Revealed
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist has used the Canadian freedom of information act to
obtain a secret
ministerial document on Canadian copyright reform that provides the
government position on virtually every controversial issue from last
year's Bill C-32. The government has no good explanation for its DMCA
approach and calls provisions requiring the destruction of course
materials part of an 'essential balance.' On the U.S. piracy watch
list, it says 'Canada does not recognize the validity of the Special
301 process and
considers it to be flawed. The Report does not employ a clear
methodology in its country ranking, as it relies on industry
allegations rather than empirical evidence and analysis.'"
Canada does not recognize the validity of the Special 301 process and considers it to be flawed. The Report does not employ a clear methodology in its country ranking, as it relies on industry allegations rather than empirical evidence and analysis
They're really surprised that a U.S. government report is based on corporate whoring rather than empirical evidence and analysis? Wow, Canadians really ARE naive.
As to the question of why Canada is adopting anti-circumvention measures (and other provisions) similar to the DMCA, well that's an easy one. They're signatories of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty. You remember that one, don't you? That's the treaty that a very tiny handful of people (including myself) were decrying fifteen years ago while everyone else was completely fucking ignoring it and its implications. Yeah, that's the same treaty that the vast majority of you probably still don't even know exists (much less that your country quietly signed it right under the press and public's radar). Not that I'm bitter or anything.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Between this secret document and the wikileaks cables uncovered it's pretty clear that the US owns Canada.
I bet the ease with which a politician justifies policy like this is directly proportional to the amount of money those that benefit most from it give to those politicians so that they can remain politicians.
Capitalism! Fuck Yeah!
Years back an ex-porn star running for Gov of California was interviewed by Howard Stern. He said something to the effect of "we don't care what you think, we just want to know how big a c*k you can suck".
Turns out, that is exactly the right qualification for being a politician.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1048993--leaks-show-u-s-swayed-canada-on-copyright-bill?bn=1
A U.S. Embassy cable written in April 2009 describes a meeting between
Zoe Addington, director of policy for then industry minister Clement,
and U.S. officials.
“In contrast to the messages from other Canadian officials, she said
that if Canada is elevated to the Special 301 Priority Watch List
(PWL), it would not hamper — and might even help — the (government of
Canada's) ability to enact copyright legislation,” the cable says.
Days later, Canada was elevated on the piracy watch list.
Seriously. I hate them. They aren't helping copyright by this, they are harming it.
This bill so effing retarded it's not funny. In particular, the fact that there is no intention whatsoever to allow any exemption to the digital locks provision where the copying is entirely uninfringing is so utterly lacking in even a modest amount of forethought as to wonder how the heck the people who proposed it could even have the mental capacity to have written it down in the first place.
The implication is that the content producer will determine what type of non-infringing copies might be allowed to be created, but this determination is inherently coupled with the availability of particular technology, and could quickly be rendered entirely obsolete, forcing the consumer into a situation where they face vendor lock-in with a brand that is all but irrelevant in the ever-progressing field of technology.
Canadians who even know about this bill are going to presume for themselves that the provisions of this bill are unreasonable, and will summarily ignore it, privately or otherwise, as history is more than enough of an example to show that the general public does not indefinitely continue to follow laws that they believe to be unfair. If they did, nobody would ever speed except by accident, and there would still be racial segregation on buses.
I've written no less than 3 separate letters to our government on this matter, and received exactly one response from the last one which was a form letter highlighting the so-called virtues of this bill, and did not address even a single concern in my actual letter.
I used to think Canada was a great place to live.... now I'm really not so sure.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I have mixed feelings about this Bill. On one hand, parts of the Bill seem very reasonable. For example, reducing the maximum penalty for infringement and going after the enablers both seem like sensible approaches. Extensions to education for fair dealing also seems reasonable. The less reasonable parts obviously include not being able to make a video library from what you record from TV, and not being able to bypass digital locks for media transfers. On its face, those parts of the Bill seem ludicrous and clearly influenced by US policies and lobbyists. Deeper down, I suspect the former is rooted in how copyright law works (you must aggressively pursue all forms / violators of piracy or you may lose your ability to protect the work in the future), and the latter allows the government to prosecute people directly for breaking digital locks rather than messing about in copyright law. Looking strictly at the law, not allowing permanent TV recordings is completely unenforceable by the police (though easily enforceable through technology). The section about not breaking digital locks will make it a challenge for Canadians to acquire the software to convert our CD's and DVD's to digital storage, but for determined users, not impossible. I suspect this too will be nearly impossible to enforce in that arena. Where it will be easy to enforce is torrenting, which obviously bypasses digital locks on material and thus qualifies under that section as prohibited. The government is in an odd position. They are not accustomed to enforcing copyright law -- at least not in a non-commercial sense. Large scale piracy for profit, yes, individual for home use, no. Now they are being asked to. And for good reason - piracy is easy and pretty much everyone who knows how to do it, *is* doing it. Some more than others, but it's happening a lot. It's gone past the point where civil law can handle it -- it's time for it to become criminal. But how? They definitely don't want to be involved in individual criminal copyright cases. Too much ambiguity and complexity. So instead, digital locks. Nice and simple. We don't care about the material, we only care about the lock you bypassed by downloading (and made available while doing so) a torrented copy. You'll not have an easy time defending that. Makes sense in a twisted kind of way. That said, I agree with Geist when he says that the digital lock portion of the Bill will have the unfortunate side effect of making legitimate use of ripping music/movies nearly impossible for the average Canadian. It will be very much like winding the clock back 10 years to a point where only the computer geeks had the tools to rip their own music/movies. I'm not sure what the alternative is though. Of course, the interesting bit continues to be gathering proof that a person is downloading materials they don't have a right to. I'm curious to see how that process will work and what Canadian judges will accept as evidence.