Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Copyright Reform Takes Effect
An anonymous reader writes "This morning, the majority of Bill
C-11, Canada's copyright reform bill, took
effect, marking the most significant changes to Canadian
copyright law in decades. Michael Geist summarizes
the changes, which include expanded fair dealing, new protection for
creators of user generated content, consumer exceptions such as time
shifting, format shifting, and backup copies, and a cap on liability
for non-commercial infringement."
Well, it is now illegal to break digital locks on a product we bought, even for non-infringing purposes. You may want to stay where you are. That is really the worst part of it, but it's pretty bad.
Right. This is not the case. Every single concession given to consumers are provided the absence of digital locks. In other words as soon as a digital lock is applied, every single consumer right goes out the window.
And so yes, Canadians have been fucked over royally by their government (which was just a proxy for the US government) in favour of the copyright lobbies.
And all of this despite the fact that the government ran (a charade of) a "consultation" across the whole country with Canadians asking what they wanted, and even though Canadians told them overwhelming that they did not want a DMCA, that is exactly what they have shoved up the asses of every single Canadian.
And as far as it being a DMCA, it's even worse than the US "model" where at least that model allows for a review every few years of new exceptions that should be made to the digital locks provisions. Canadians get no such reviews and will live with these digital lock rules forever.