Canadian Supreme Court Entrenches Tech Neutrality In Copyright Law

An anonymous reader writes "Last week, a Canadian Supreme Court decision attracted attention for reduced copyright fees for music and video. Michael Geist has a detailed analysis that concludes there are two bigger, long term effects. First, Canada has effectively now adopted fair use. Second, the Supreme Court has made technological neutrality a foundational principle of Canadian copyright. The technological neutrality principle could have an enormous long-term impact on Canadian copyright, posing a threat to some copyright collective tariff proposals and to the newly enacted digital lock rules."

Comments

we are

[alienzed]

the Champions. But if you move here, please respect what's left of the physical environment too.

Re:we are

[davester666]

Not really. Harper has already jammed ACTA up our ass, and I doubt the 'only valid if at least X countries sign' will stop him from just passing all the laws to enact ACTA regardless of any outcry.

He's really taken to this 'dictator until my 5 years are up'.

Re:Fill me in, eh

[Literaphile]

Of course when the industry has more than 2/3 of the lawmakers on the payrole it doesn't matter. They'll just alter the constition.

You're kidding, right? It's virtually impossible to alter the Canadian constitution.

Re:Fill me in, eh

[Anonymous Coward]

You only need 7 out of 10 provinces representing at least 50% of the population agreeing to a change. How hard could that be! /sarcasm

Canada wold likely break up before someone could get a constitutional amendment could be passed. So short of buying off every eligible voter in the country the entertainment industry is SOL.

Re:Fill me in, eh

[Mashiki]

Yeah just don't forget S.1 of the Charter.
1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Always puts a damper on stuff, it can be good or it can be bad. Though it's always the courts that ends up being the counter to the government as we see in cases like this. I said oh 3 months back that this is what would happen, and it did. The system does work and fairly well. It's better when founding documents aren't considering "living and breathing" but rather foundational. It stops people from going: "but the framers said "X" which is half the problem in the US and the supreme court. It's better when laws are written to the language of the foundation, and the courts and government are bound to the strictest terms of the foundation itself.

It's about time

[Tough Love]

My Nexus 7 arrived today. It comes preloaded with a copy of "Transformers: Far side of the moon" for my viewing pleasure. Five minutes into viewing it there was a popup advising the battery is low. So I go get the USB cable and plug it in. Now the movie won't play, it says "Couldn't load licence key (error 16)". Bah. So all the smart boys and all the smart girls over at Google can't make DRM work properly. Can anybody make DRM work properly? Does DRM have any right to life whatsoever?

Canada is heading towards making DRM illegal. Good for Canada, and a perfect example why.