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Canadian DOJ Warned About Unconstitutionality of Copyright Digital Lock Rules

An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian House of Commons may have passed the Canadian DMCA, but the constitutional concerns with the copyright bill and its digital lock rules will likely linger for years. Michael Geist has obtained internal government documents that indicate that the Department of Justice issued a legal opinion warning about the potential for constitutional violations. The DOJ legal opinion warned of the need to link circumvention with copyright infringement and of the particular danger of not providing the blind with an exception. The Canadian law misses the mark on both counts with no link to infringement and an exception that blind groups say is 'nullified' by strict conditions."

5 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ministry of Justice by Livius · · Score: 3, Informative

    Wrong. Department of Justice is the correct legal name (and they should know!). (Though it is Ministère de la Justice in French.) The head of the department is the Minister of Justice.

  2. Canada Got it Backwards by Bob9113 · · Score: 3, Informative

    the Department of Justice issued a legal opinion warning about the potential for constitutional violations.

    Quick pro-tip, Canada: You're supposed to stuff your DoJ with ex-RIAA lawyers, then you won't have that problem.

  3. Re:Constitution? by dadragon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Canada has its own constitution.

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    God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
  4. Re:Dear Canada: by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 5, Informative

    Skippus, the current government we have up here was elected by fraudulent means.

    They're actively blocking the investigation into voter oppression with the line "They should have filed the complaint before they found out about the fraud!" The head investigator into the biggest case of voter oppression had his budget cut by seven million dollars and was forced into early retirement last week. A recent court decision found that fraudulent votes for a CPC candidate were greater than the difference, forcing a by-election.

    Several senior members of the government are under investigation for election fraud, including the head of the Ethics Committee.

    The party has plead guilty to breaking election law in the last three elections, and responded by appointing those that did the fraud into Senate positions. (Our senate is appointed for life!)

    The 80% of us that did NOT vote for the current bag of asshats are waiting patiently for the investigations to conclude. Stewie's lucky it's not the US or he'd be leaving Parliament Hill in a custom-fitted pine suit.

    I am mad enough to riot and drag people bodily from the Hill.

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    ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
  5. Re:I confess! And I'd like to turn myself in... by canajin56 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nothing, because the bill doesn't make it a criminal case, it grants civil remedies to the harmed party. So unless the police owned the copyright they couldn't take action. And if they did, they would sue you, not arrest you.

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    ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI