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Canadian Government Says DRM Circumvention Not Related To Copyright
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist has followed up a recent
release of internal government talking points on copyright with the full, internal clause-by-clause analysis of Bill C-32. A new copyright bill is
expected as soon as this week and the government document confirms there is no defense to violations of the digital lock rules, noting 'a contravention of this prohibition is not an infringement of copyright and the defenses to
infringement of copyright are not defenses to these prohibitions.' The government's own words on the digital lock provisions confirm that they may be unconstitutional since they fall outside the boundaries of copyright."
Basically, if you break DRM even without violating copyright in the process you can still be held liable, and from this any defense based on copyright law (fair use, etc.) is not valid in such cases. On the flipside, several legal experts think that makes those provisions of the law less likely to stand up in court.
You are under violation of thinking about breaking copyright law!
...is that DRM represents an in perpetuum algorithmic representation of law that supercedes all haebeus corpus, or the belief of reasonable doubt. In order for DRM to be treated this way, DRM has to be a computer algorithm that is more correct about how to assess law than the justice system itself. Or at least, that's the consequence of this law.
FanFictionRecs.net
Reading this comment is breaking my DRM I have on this comment. Though no harm was done and I shan't be pressing charges, you will be going to jail.
Protecting revenues from sale of SCTV episodes, eh!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
t..h.i.s...i..,.s..an..en..cr.y.p..t....e,d._m..e__ss;ag..e....De..cr.,y.pt..it.an...d..yo...u..ow..e...me.,bi...ll.i...on...s.
How have the constitutionally invalid provisions of the US DMCA not been ripped to shreds in the US courts? Specifically, the violation of free speech (can't talk about digital-lock circumvention), the violation of due process (conviction and punishment without the courts), and the elimination of fair use as a reason to break locks.
Law protecting DRM proposed in canada. What company, based in Montreal, has the worst DRM of any other developer? Ubisoft. The always online DRM is so bad people who bought their games are breaking it. This is a law to protect the Ubisoft DRM, plain and simple.
As has been pointed out numerous times, "Encryption is about A sending information to B while ensuring that C cannot read it. In DRM, B and C are the same person." If you 'break' something that was supplied to you in an already- (and, in fact, irretrievably and inherently-) broken state, have you actually broken anything? And if you haven't broken anything, have you actually violated this stupid law?
Ubisoft is still alive?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
if our politicians could at least write law so that it looks like it would stand up in court. I understand that there is a fair bit of stuff that isn't clear cut with the whole body of law considered that needs court time. But in instances like this it feels like the politicians are just giving into the lobbyists without even giving a second thought about the values the country that gave them their job was built on. It is rather sickening.
How, you ask ... simple ; wealth is power. If you allow people and groups to amass more wealth than others, it is inevitable that they will use that power to make things in the aspect of life that you dont allow people to gain unlimited power - politics.
In this case, its particular private interests in music/movie industry, representing a very, very small group of population in respect to the ownership of the wealth contained in that interest, directly subverting and influencing politics, which they were supposed to be limited in power just like any other citizen.
this travesty of a law was totally passed solely with their pushing and their shaping. in lieu of what majority wanted.
you directly can see this issue rooting from what propels wall street protests - a very tiny minority of the nation holds a great majority of the wealth, and therefore exercising their power at will - 5% of population held 72% of wealth and income (including income generation tools).
and, as we know by evidence that canadian copyright law was pushed by u.s. private interests, we can say that that kind of imbalance of wealth (power) transcends borders.
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Hurray!!! The RIAA and MPAA are Victorious! The Public Domain is dead!!! While Copyright might expire some day, emphasis on might, the almighty DRM will NEVER expire.
I wish I'd be able to put myself in cryo statis for 10-20 years and not have to wait for all this silliness to end.
Hey what this says is circumventing DRM is a violation of a civil contract with the rights holder and not a violation of the copyright itself. That would mean you can only be held responsible FOR ACTUAL DAMAGES. It would be very hard if not impossible for anyone to establish any damage from an individual breaking DRM for fair use. It's the copyright laws that have the outrageous statutory damages.
Multi-Terabyte disks X 24 disk RAID controller. + $1,000 Computer = Entertainment execs. are terrified.
Next up."Renting a movie or game is PIRACY!."
Regulation is their last best hope.
15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
Since there's no public trust, no lockbox with all the keys for every DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray ever released, the provisions of the DMCA and it's Canadian equivelent, illegally extend copyright to Infinity.
Since you can never place it into public domain, without first breaking the law by decrypting it, it is a direct violation of copyright law.
ie - Encrypting content is illegal.
They're forgetting you can't use any DRM protected materials in an igloo anyways.
Just so you all know, I am Canadian, and I mean every word I said.
When I bought a copy of windows vista, it wouldn't authenticate. I tried for 3 days and even called microsoft support. finally just got fed up and broke the drm. (which took 10 minutes tops)
Give artists/distributors the choice – their works can either be protected by copyright, or by DRM, but not both. If the DRM is effective then they won't need copyright protection. Plus it's illegal to break the lock. That said, if the lock is broken, the content is no longer protected and the public can do what they like with it (except the person that broke the lock – they're going to prison, if we can establish who they are...)
So I rename "song.mp3" to "song.mp3.DRM" and share it. This is my crappy solution for DRM. Rename that file and I can sue for damages?!?
Our government doesn't need to be prodded to work for the interests that lobbyists represent - by default the government sides with them.
Lobbyists can meet with officials, which is more than enough access if you're reaching a friendly ear.
FYI:
Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada: http://www.ocl-cal.gc.ca/
Database: https://ocl-cal.gc.ca/app/secure/orl/lrrs
--- Bigger bits, softer blocks, tighter ASCII.
This doesn't even make sense in Canadian law, but it is the kind of wording used in authoritarian laws in the US, like some draft versions of the legislation for the bailout scam or the terror laws eliminating human rights. I would suggest this is a big clue as to the true origins of the proposal.
So, assuming I create my own DRM-protected file using my own algorithm and then proceed to crack it, I've violated a law?
What if I trick politicians into cracking my DRM? Do they go to jail? That'd be lovely.
By law I have fair use rights, DRM takes those away without my consent. I want compensation.
While unpopular with the /. crowd, IP laws are a "contract" between society and creator. The creator gets rewarded with a temporary right to prohibit others from copying etc. After that period, the creative work enters the public domain. It should be blindingly obvious that of the IP laws, it is the copyright law that has become completely out of whack, given the insane duration of copyright.
With DRM it gets even worse: The creator (or usually the person who obtained the rights from the creator) doesn't intend to fulfill his end of the contract. DRM prevents a work from entering the public domain.
Bert
(patent attorney)
Anti-circumvention provisions being "bad law and bad policy" as Lawrence Lessig called them in his 2001 op-ed piece Jail Time in the Digital Age must be the reason why they get adopted the world over (Ayn Rand comes to mind). :-( It's a logical next step for him to have focused on corruption research.
This is comparable to me loosing my car keys, breaking into it, and then being jailed for circumventing anti-theft protection.
because we all know that DRM'ed works can not be copyrighted
Sorry to burst your bubble. And even for USians ("The Freedomest Country In The World(tm)"), UCITA doesn't apply in all states.
"The Bill introduces new causes of action (such as those relating to TPMs and RMIs) that could be used in civil lawsuits regardless of whether or not there has been an infringement of copyright."
That's idiotic, but at least they are being honest about what they are actually doing. I wish the ministers at the time had the guts to actually say it instead of hiding it in an official document that we didn't see until years later. I always wondered if the ministers involved were too stupid to realize how contradictory the proposed law was, or if they did know that, but were trying to pull the wool over our eyes and hoping nobody noticed. It's the latter. I am appalled but not terribly surprised.
What they are proposing is like introducing a law that makes it illegal to break the locks to get into your own car. Yes, it isn't the same because in the car/locks case you actually own the car, whereas in the case of copyright you may own a licensed copy of the material but not the copyright itself, but it is still analogous because you have the *right* to use that copyrighted material in certain ways when you buy it (e.g., under fair dealing or in order to format shift). If the locks get in the way of you lawfully using the material you should have the right to break them in order to use it, and I strongly believe that it shouldn't be illegal to merely make or use the tools to do so. Otherwise you don't really have any of those rights that are also spelled out in copyright law. All a copyright holder has to do is rot13 the data and your rights vanish. They can lock up their stuff behind those locks forever, and should the day come when copyright finally expires into the public domain, you're still technically breaking the law to get the material out. DUMB.
So if I play a DVD, do I get thrown in jail? Or sued?
Basically, if you break DRM even without violating copyright in the process you can still be held liable, and from this any defense based on copyright law (fair use, etc.) is not valid in such cases.
I break the lock on someone's door, I'm guilty of breaking a lock AND whatever I did on their property.
I break the lock into my own house, I'm guilty of.... nothing.
Simple analogy.
My take on what this means after reading his blog is that the copyrighted material is viewed as [intelectual] property. Breaking this lock would violate property protection, which is part of provincial law, and not federal law. So it would be unconstitutional to enforce a federal law that would control something that is within the provincial duristiction.
Provincial elections are about a week away.
If you really want to ensure that politicians listen to the electorate, send a clear message to the PC party by voting AGAINST them.
Otherwise, stop complaining.
(Yes, I know the difference between the provincial and federal governments, but it's still the same parties with the same people effectively calling the shots.)
its not about you lack balls then.
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You can't take the sky from me...