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.'"

Comments

Wow, what a unforseeable shocker

[elrous0]

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.

Re:Wow, what a unforseeable shocker

[brunes69]

RTFA.

Bill C-32 goes far beyond what is needed by the WIPO treaty. In fact, C-32 does not even have some exemptions that the DMCA has in it.

Re:Wow, what a unforseeable shocker

[DNS-and-BIND]

Hey, it's not all bad, WIPO enforcement is one of the reasons that China's cleaning up its act these days. It's not like the old days with DVD shops and fake software everywhere. I can't even hardly find counterfeits any more.

Re:Wow, what a unforseeable shocker

[Anonymous Coward]

"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."

We aren't naive. We are too polite to tell the Americans to PFO.

Where we were naive was signing the WIPO treaty way back in 1996 without public consultation, and before most people had any idea that copyright issues would become so important to the general public. Huge revisions to copyright for the "digital age" before we really understood what "digital age" meant. Dumb. As people have become more familiar with it, we've been naive enough to think that our government has been negotiating copyright law revisions in good faith, and with an honest attempt at balance between creator and user rights. It's become more and more obvious that isn't the case. They're seriously going to introduce Bill C-32 without modification? Time to write my new MP.

The single most important part of C-32 that should change is the ridiculous idea that circumventing "digital locks" should be illegal even if the action being taken is otherwise legal. That's crazy. Either we have the rights described in copyright law and can legally exercise them, or we don't actually have them. The "anti-circumvention" rules should not trump the other parts of the act, otherwise the whole thing is a farce. Oh, yay, we have new rights for format shifting, but if someone rot13'd the data to encrypt it we would be breaking the new law anyway? They've been told over and over how silly it is (the previous minister was even asked about the inconsistency in a news conference and stuttered his way through an irrelevant answer), but the provision is still there. Idiots.

Re:Owned

[djmurdoch]

That document contains the planned answers to potential questions before a parliamentary committee. They're designed to hide the truth and sounce reasonable. For example, the answer to the question about non-infringing use on p 10 sounds reasonable, but avoids the question: why can't consumers break TPMs for legal uses of the material?

Stern interview..

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Yet Cdn Government offcial asked to be 301 list.

[guidryp]

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.

I hate our government....

[mark-t]

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.