Canada's Copyright Notice Fiasco: Why the Government Bears Responsibility

An anonymous reader writes Canada's copyright notice fiasco, with false and misleading notices being sent to thousands of Internet users, has attracted growing attention with the government promising to address the issue. This morning, Michael Geist posts internal government documents that show that the government was aware of these risks before launching the system, but did nothing about it. The documents show that the government decided to forge ahead with the system without any regulations, despite repeated warnings that additional rules on the scope of the notices was needed.

Comments

Problem

[penguinoid]

Sir, if we pass this law the media companies will do something that will show everyone that they are a bunch of lying pricks!
Uh, and that's a problem how?

Where's the Beef?

[lazarus]

The only information I can find saying that the regulations are not enforced is what is in Geist's article. He notes that the regulations are located here and then goes on to say that the government decided to go ahead and implement without these here. The problem is that the second article does NOT say (anywhere that I can find) that it was implemented without regs. It claims that it is the final step in the copyright modernization act which is in fact what the first government document was all about.

Either I'm missing something or Geist is making assumptions about what Canadians actually have based on the action of a US company that is already being sued for their practices. Someone please enlighten me.

Re:In other words ...

[MightyMartian]

There's a blogger on Canadian constitutional matters that actually has a good description of the Tories; he calls them "lazy revolutionaries". The Tories seem full of all this desire to reform various aspects of the Canadian government, but seem too lazy to actually do the legwork. That's how they end up in fiascos like the copyright notice incident.

While some ascribe malice to the Tories' actions, it's become very clear to me, particularly during the years of the majority government, that while maliciousness may play a part in some of what they do, a good deal of what they do is just simply incompetent.

Wouldn't intentionaly misleading imply its ilegal?

[SirDrinksAlot]

Wouldn't intentionally misleading letters demanding money amount to fraud or racketeering? Perhaps if Bell and them were really concerned they could turn it around on the copyright holders.