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

In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

"... 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 ...

In other words, the Canadian government is either a psychopath, or the Canadian government enjoys the citizens to get screwed

If there is a sentence I could tell the Canadian government it would be " FUCK YOU !! "

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.

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?

Can ISPs send their own notices?

[oneiros27]

I apologize for reading the article, but it says that ISPs complained that they didn't like the $5000 fine for not forwarding the messag ... but can they forward it and add their own message?

Something to the effect of 'you should know your rights', with the maximum penalty they could face, how they can fight against it, etc.

If they come up with a boilerplate message, and not something that needs to be customized for each letter being sent, then you're minimized the incremental costs. And I'm guessing that they had plenty of lawyers involved with reviewing the bills as proposed and the law that was finally passed.

I would think the 'we comply with the letter of the law, but not the intent' approach would cheaper & more effective than trying to deal with lobbying politicians who already have their minds made up. (provided you don't do something that might get you sued ... but getting sued and going to court might be better to establish the limits of the law than leaving it to politicians)

If the law's written in such a way as to prevent them from sending a message triggered by the requirement to forward the message, then you send it to *all* of your subscribers.