Canadian Music Industry Wants Subscriber Disclosure Without Court Oversight

An anonymous reader writes "The incredible demands of the Canadian music industry as it seeks a massive overhaul of Canadian copyright law continues. It is seeking increased liability for social networking sites, search engines, blogging platforms, video sites, and many other websites featuring third party contributions, plus a new iPod tax, and an extension in the term of copyright. Last week, it went further, demanding a requirement for Internet providers to disclose customer name and address information to copyright owners without court oversight as well as takedowns with no due process and unlimited statutory damages."

Comments

You used to be cool, Canada

[elrous0]

What happened to that Canada I remember, huh? The country to took in draft dodgers during Vietnam? The country that instituted universal healthcare? The country where "liberal" wasn't an insult? The country that wasn't afraid to zig when the U.S. zagged?

You've changed, man.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Stephen Harper happened.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[the_other_one]

We are now a Harptatorship.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[Cabriel]

What the Labels want, and what they will get are two different things.

For example, just because I want a new car and a pony doesn't mean I'll get the pony.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[EdIII]

What happened to that Canada I remember, eh?

FTFY

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

This hasn't passed yet. We massively protested the Lawful Access act(C30) and it's on hold now. Some of their demands are exactly why C30 didn't pass yet. I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't pass too. What they are asking isn't in the bill yet, it's their wish list, a very naughty wish list.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[RicoX9]

Yes, but when your representatives are approached by the Music Industry and say "I want MOAR", and the representatives say "I want a beach house", and get it, the Music Industry gets what they want.

Corporatocracy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

What happened to that Canada I remember, huh? The country to took in draft dodgers during Vietnam? The country that instituted universal healthcare? The country where "liberal" wasn't an insult? The country that wasn't afraid to zig when the U.S. zagged?

You've changed, man.

Amen. Although, in a certain light this may be a good thing. As a United Statsian, I've observed that my own clinically insane government tends to want to distance itself from our northern cousins, maybe (albeit not bloody likely) we'll start to pare back copyright to a more reasonable level. On the other hand, we may simply up the ante and make copyright eleventy billion years. But even that may not be a bad thing, the more ridiculous copyright is, the more people will ignore it. Even right now the average person on the street doesn't see a ethical problem with consuming media that was illegally distributed. Not everything that is immoral is illegal, and not everything that is illegal is immoral.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[SuricouRaven]

That's how politics is done. If you want A, you demand A, B, C, D, E and F... knowing that your opponents will argue strongly, and not give up until they have something of a victory. So they defeat you on B, C, D, E and F, and declare themselves successful - but you get away with A, which is what you wanted all along. Everything else was just to play the game.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, history repeating itself. The radical right snuck in.

Once upon a time, the Republican party in the US were decent and respectable. Case in point, Abe Lincoln. Then Nixon and the rest of his radical right invaded the party and made a dramatic "course correction".

In Canada, the conservative party used to be a pretty decent set of people. Boring, but trustworthy. Then Brian Mulroney came along, introduced a number of measures that generated so much great deal of dislike ("free trade" and a federal sales tax) for the party that they shrank to a tiny fraction of their former size. The radical right, calling themselves "the Reform Party", were generally regarded as a bunch of dangerous kooks and hence didn't have a chance of getting into power. However, they brokered a merger with the now pitiful Conservative party, gaining a few seats, but more importantly, getting the right to use the "Conservative Party" name. People might have been embarrassed to vote for the Reform Party, but the voting for "Conservative Party" was a family tradition. The new "Conservative Party" eventually managed a few minority governments because the center and left wing votes were split among too many other parties before eventually winning a majority government.

And yes, most of us are embarrassed by being represented by Stephen Harper as you were when George Bush Jr was in power.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

We should make a strong counter proposal:

1) Shorten copyright to 10 years
2) Remove the levy on blank media
3) Quit whining about "profits" - you aren't "entitled" to them; you have to go earn them. Yes, this means you don't get any more laws to prop up legacy methods of distribution.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[DarwinSurvivor]

Actually, I believe it started earlier than that. Harper may have started the "privacy" stuff, but we've been bending over to the Americans since NAFTA and the softwood lumber issue started.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[Beardo the Bearded]

2 years. That's enough time to get the cash from a top-40 hit, have any game be relegated to a "classic" / "greatest hits", and get a movie released onto DVD.

After that, it's all public domain.

You would still require judicial oversight and a warrant.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[eddy the lip]

I live in rural Alberta, so I'm dead in the Conservative heartland. I'm an hours drive from Stockwell Day's old stomping ground.

Talking to people during the last election, I heard two things: oil sands and economy. A lot of people in Alberta think that anyone other than the Conservatives will kill the oil sands and cost jobs, and that the only party that's strong on the economy is the Conservatives. They could prorogue parliament, insult vets, cut any program they felt like, and those two items would still trump it.

I was actually surprised how little ideology I ran into. It's the first election I've gone out and really engaged people to find out why they were voting Tory. People here like their big trucks, and they don't want to lose their big trucks, and everything else is secondary.

I have no idea what GTAs excuse was.

Re:You used to be cool, Canada

[bubkus_jones]

As much as Stephen Harper has been a pain, and how much people may dislike that he was elected, the point is, every election he's lead the Conservatives, they've increased the number of seats they controlled, while Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatief couldn't even get elected in their home ridings. That's the biggest thing about Liberal supporters that irritates me, these days. They're all "Harper's evil and is ruining this country" and "No one wants Harper" and crap like that, while ignoring the fact that he's getting the votes. As far as the election system goes, the people who voice their opinion (in the only way that counts) want Harper.

They go on to complain about the ever decreasing voter turnout, but don't think about how it seems to coincide with the ever decreasing of people voting for the Liberals. They want change, an alternative to Harper, but can't offer any viable candidate. The candidates they did find (the aformentioned Dion and Ignatief) were wooden, subpar speakers (from what I saw in various interviews and debates) and seemed rather airheaded. They reminded me of characters I created in middle and high school (grades 6-12) for "creative writing" assignments in English. Harper, to me, seems to have an actual personality, like you could actually converse with him in a normal fashion if you were two people who just happen to pass each other on the street.

Holy Handgrenades Batman

[Wild_dog!]

Talk about the apparent obliteration of citizens rights.... I thought the US was starting to turn to the darkside, but Canada is working hard eh?

Re:Holy Handgrenades Batman

[gstoddart]

Talk about the apparent obliteration of citizens rights.... I thought the US was starting to turn to the darkside, but Canada is working hard eh?

Sadly, this is likely coming from American groups applying pressure. There seems to be a lot of lobbying by foreign organizations on this front.

The copyright lobby won't be happy until they've managed to make sure that the internet can only function according to their rules. And they want everyone else to pay for it.

Fucking parasites.

Color me shocked

[MonsterTrimble]

The CRIA is the canadian arm of the RIAA. They just reached a settlement to pay $47.5 million to songwriters which they had been screwing for decades Why is anyone surprised they would try for this?

Re:Color me shocked

[DarwinSurvivor]

And you think it would turn out any better with 90% of the voting populace being completely uninformed about the candidates? What you'd most likely end up with would be people ether handing in blank/invalid ballots (they are anonymous after all) or simply picking the one at the top of the page. The only good that could POSSIBLY come of this would be that minority parties would get more representation. But remember, for every GOOD minority party, there are also VERY, VERY BAD ones. I'm not talking "destroy the environment" bad, I'm talking white-supremest bad (no joke, take a look at some of the parties that never get seats, it's bloody frightening what some of them push).

Re:iPod tax?!

[viperidaenz]

Does it mean its legal to pirate music on iPods because the copyright lobby is getting paid for the sale of the item because it could be used for piracy? Like their blank CD tax...

Found this...

[ilsaloving]

Hey, USA! *holds up rat traps with RIAA lawyers attached*

We found these in our garage. We left some money on a shelf the other day, figuring it would be ok, but it looks like these lil guys detected the scent and chewed their way inside. Do you want them back, or should we just take them to animal control to be euthanized?

Canadian Music industry wants...

[the_fat_kid]

I want a pony.
doesn't mean it will happen.

Also first pick of virgin daughters

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Anyone found to have downloaded, listened to, performed (including whistling, humming, and spoken-word), mentioned, or remembered, whether intentionally, unintentionally, or involuntarily, any music that cannot be proven to not be covered by copyright or potentially covered by copyright in the future, or anyone in possession of any digital copies of music without a DRM spinal shunt, will be required to send their virgin daughters upon reaching age 16 for inspection to:

Royal Canadian Music Industry Headquarters
Mount Doom, Canada

Any daughters found to be desirable will be held until no longer useful. If your daughter is held, you will be responsible for a $4,000 monthly sustenance fee until such time as she is released. Anyone not in compliance with the above policies will be sued unto death or capitulation.

Re:Unlimited statutory damages?

[Adriax]

But when their beancounters divide their revenue target by their average damage award to find out how many lawsuits they want to file in a year, it'll be dividing by zero! That will create a localized singularity that'll wipe their offices off the face of....

Oooooohhhhhhhhh....
Ok.

The sheer greed of these men know no bounds.

[argee]

Apparently, draft dodgers is not the only thing we exported across our Northern Border.
We have apparently also exported limitless greed, avarice, and thirst for power.
Oh, add corruption, corporatism and entitlement to the list!

Did I forget anything?

Re:The sheer greed of these men know no bounds.

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I'd say it was less of an export and more of a trade. After all, we got the musical stylings of William Shatner, Celine Dion, Jusin Bieber, Nickelback, and Rush. If I were Canada I wouldn't want any of them in my public domain either.

Re:iPod tax?!

[gstoddart]

Does it mean its legal to pirate music on iPods because the copyright lobby is getting paid for the sale of the item because it could be used for piracy? Like their blank CD tax...

Again, another case of them wanting to have their cake and eat it too.

They want the tax, er, levy ... and they want to make sure any form of copying is also illegal.

They're talking about making it a criminal offense to break any form of digital lock, for any reason. So, my old copy of DVD Decryptor is now a WMD. So much for fait use and some of our other rights.

An outlandish sense of entitlement.

[lexsird]

The music and movie industry has an outlandish sense of entitlement that I think need jammed straight up their tailpipes. I had this argument today with a friend and I told him both of these industries are failing because their time has passed, the digital age has not only toppled their tight fisted distribution systems, but it's open the doors for the masses to be creative. Hence their days, like the stage coach before cars and highways, has passed.

Neither of these archaic industries are worth sacrificing the freedoms of the Internet for. I guess we will have to put them against the wall when the times comes as well.

Re:Constitution?

[Mashiki]

Our charter? Yeah it does. Actually a significant portion of the charter covers prosecution and protection from the law, of law, and other such sundry things. This will get no where because it has no basis in canadian law, fair dealing takes care of it. And that they've already agreed to the levy, means that they already get money. In turn the courts will toss this right out and slap them with yet another fine.

Unlikely to happen, Really bad timing

[volts]

We just had a major shit-storm in Canada over a government bill (C-30) that would allow the police the right to identifying information without a warrant. The bill has been hustled off to committee for amendment as a result of public outrage. Government politician must be rolling their eyes at the timing of CIMA's demands.

Re:Of course not.

[DarwinSurvivor]

For those that are confused it's sort of like taxing bathing suits to compensate beach owners for people sneaking onto their beaches without paying admission, except that the money actually goes to the guy that made the "beach ahead" sign. Don't worry, it doesn't make much sense to us Canadians either.