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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."
The North will rise again!
come and sue me for that against my fair dealing defence, original content boy.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
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.
This is unfortunate. A digital locks rule would not *necessarily* be a bad thing, if it contained a, "as long as it does not supercede the above-listed consumer rights" clause. As it stands, I'm pretty sure this is not the case.
This provision alone can make all the other customer benefits meaningless. All a "content provider" has to do is provide ANY means of locking, including something as simple as ROT13, and the customer/consumer cannot legally do anything with it this bill was supposed to allow like format shifting.
I had actually e-mailed my MP directly (a Liberal) and the Minister of Industry Affairs (a Conservative), making it pretty clear about how consumer's rights must be protected.
Looks like the levy on media is there; I guess music downloading will continue being legal in Canada. I'm fine with that.
The digital locks piece is what bothers me, and it's good that a process exists to have the governement re-visit this. So on top of my list will be to copy DVDs so that I can use it my devices. Since format-shifting is permitted then this should be fine on principle.
Michael Geist himself should be commended because he was a solid (constructive) critic and I remember seeing him on CSPAN doing an awesome job explaining the issues to the committee members. He played a BIG part in my opinion to get this bill the way it is.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
A great deal has been made about the expansions to fair dealing in this bill. However, there is a provision that "digital locks" cannot be circumvented, even for the legitimate purposes enumerated in the fair dealing expansions. The logical conclusion of this is that anybody producing any intellectual property can just slap a ROT13 cipher on their work and call it a digital lock. From there, all the new restrictions will apply, and none of the benefits. Anybody who reads the digital locks provision would realize that it's a loophole big enough to fly a 747 through, but based on the Conservative government's repeated refusal to amend that provision, it seems to be a feature, not a defect.
In short, this is a huge loss for the Canadian public, and a huge win for content producers.
What is a "creator of user generated content"?
You. Your comment is user-generated content, and you are its creator.
Free Martian Whores!
To be fair, I have to say that those fair dealing exemptions are a good thing to be added to the law.
The core problem is that those exemptions can be revoked entirely at the discretion of the content maker who can simply decide to utilize a digital lock.
This is an inherent self-contradiction. If fair dealing was allegedly a reasonable exemption to copyright infringement, then why should a choice that the consumer has no part in making (the decision to utilize a digital lock) change that? Even at best it's irrellevant, and it's a damn-near certainty that most Canadians aren't going to care about this at all when they are engaging in practices that still may qualify as fair dealing, and allegedly could have been completely exempt from copyright infringement, but are suddenly illegal just because of a lock's presence. Consumers may have a choice to not buy such locked content, but by offering legal protection for digital locks, the government has created an added value incentive for publishers to utilize them, and this so-called "choice" that consumer have is restricted by the actual availability of unlocked and alternative content, which in the face of the added value that locks might have for publishers, is only going to get smaller in the future.
People do not obey laws that do not agree with... at least not in the long run, and it is as certain as anything that Canadians will break this restriction at their own convenience, privately or otherwise.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
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.
From the Geist's summary:
"The government has established a regulatory process to allow for new digital lock exceptions, which creates the possibility of Canadians seeking new exceptions to at least match some of the U.S. exceptions on DVDs or streaming video"
I think there's four options here:
a) we as consumers push to get these exceptions in place using the process
b) we avoid products with digital locks
c) we come up with a digital -> analog -> digital conversion solution
d) we break the law and risk a max $5,000 fine
Wearing pants should always be optional.
What is a "creator of user generated content"?
You. Your comment is user-generated content, and you are its creator.
So, did you just violate his copyright by quoting him? Did I just violate yours? I'm confused...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Canada had a regulatory process to allow satellite TV service into Canada, and satellite radio service into Canada. Both took about 10 years to complete, and were completed simply because in 10 years a Canadian media conglomerate had figured out how to monetize Canadian consumers.
The answer is it will not work because history has shown it doesn't. It's okay, everyone will just keep pirating just like they always did.
Under Canadian law, it is not an infringement to possess digital locks and liability is limited to actual damages in non-commercial cases.
But this is the important part. If you're ripping something for personal purposes, the most they can possibly sue you for is what they can prove they lost. This means that you aren't going to get ten-thousand dollar fines for ripping your BR of Cars so the kids' fingerprints don't get all over the disc. My lawyer has told me to "just eat" a fairly easy $2500 wrong. That means unless you're a commercial offender (i.e. selling for profit) you're going to be just fine.
And even if you own handbrake + a lot of other ripping tools, that in itself is not a crime and it couldn't be used for getting a warrant.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
It looks like you're right that it's not a crime to have that software, but it looks to me like 41.1(c) makes it a crime to create those tools or provide them. Also, you might be "import"ing the software (a new crime per this law) when you download/update it.
Interestingly, this law has the same weirdness as US' DMCA: it defines circumvention in terms of doing something without the authority of the copyright owner. But for tools, there never is any specific copyright owner. That creates a two-pronged weakness (just like DCMA) in that
So this law is theoretically solvable the same way as DMCA: everyone, go make a movie, and publish it on CSS-protected DVD. Then sew chaos.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Do you really want to live in a country where everybody's polite and everybody has health insurance? And the federal police wear silly red uniforms? And gay marriage is legal?
They even have decent transit in some of the cities. Bunch of commies.
From the article:
"At the moment, Canada is arguably more restrictive than even the U.S., though the digital lock rules do not carry significant penalties for individuals. Under Canadian law, it is not an infringement to possess tools or software that can be used to circumvent digital locks and liability is limited to actual damages in non-commercial cases."
The liability limitation will likely take some of the sting out of the lock provision, as will the $5000 cap on damages for non-commercial infringement. Looks like a bit of a legislative hack, but I suspect that if you're ripping your dvds to stream them around your house you won't have much to worry about (no damages to speak of), and even if you're torrenting your rip, the damages would be pretty low (less than $5000), which is not going to make a big inviting target for the CRIA to attack. Of course, YMMV, I am not your lawyer, etc etc.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Bunch of commies.
Ahem, excuse me sir, but I believe the proper term is "Canuckistanis". Sorry to bother you.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
You mean: Sorry to bother you, eh.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
No, I don't think I'd want to live there. I'm fine with my home in Canada though.