I have a different question I'd love to see answers to. I'm a Canadian heading to London, England for two weeks and really want to have a data plan. I have an unlocked Nexus One phone ((GSM 3G 900/AWS/2100MHz) , which I use on WIND Mobile within Canada.
I just wanted people to know that we have drafted a petition against ACTA. Politicians have no clue what is going on, and this is one tool among many to make it show up on the agenda.
You're not as familiar with Canadian law as you think you are.
The private copying regime came into existance in 1997, not the 1980's, and is only one year earlier than the USA's DMCA. It also only applies to audio recordings -- downloading anything else that is under copyright without permission is just as illegal in Canada as it is in the United States.
It is unfortunate that some of our idiotic politicians (mostly Liberals) mis-informed Canadians about the state of Canadian copyright law in their desire to pass DMCA style laws in Canada.
"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime."
You forgot the real issue here, which is that Bono, Gates and similar pseudo-philanthropists are actively involved with making a variety of "teaching" (sharing of knowledge) expensive and/or illegal. This is the core of what Bono is ranting about this time, suggesting the world's governments should go as far as the human rights violations in China to (theoretically -- no proof of "benefit") grant him more money.
There are those who think that making knowledge scarce, including criminalising private citizens owning and controlling their own communications technology, is the only way to make it possible to pay authors/inventors for their important contributions to society. This ignores all the experience and research to the contrary. Whether you believe this or not, you must admit that deliberately making knowledge scarce and thus more expensive greatly harms the interests of the worlds poor.
The repercussions of deliberately making knowledge scarce will be an underlying issue that will show up in many global conflicts in the next decade, whether talking about poverty, western economic recovery or global climate change.
I think you are missing that this is not a letter that was sent from "the government" of Canada. This was someone who is an advisor in the Intellectual Property Branch of Environment Canada. http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/5100
For all I can tell from the government directory, this could be a private sector consultant. His entry doesn't look much different than my own when I'm on contract to the government. Try looking up my name in January in http://sage-geds.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/ , as I am returning to a contract at Agriculture Canada doing Linux Sysadmin/GIS work.
An email from me, regardless of what email address I use, should never be confused as an official statement from the Government of Canada.
Obviously we will have to agree to disagree, and leave it at that. You are trying to state as fact something that pretty much all evidence (including from countries that have actually done it) suggests otherwise.
There are none so blind as those who poke their own eyes out.
Taxation is not a yes/no question. When you transfer taxes from income/profit taxes onto energy this is effectively a tax decrease for energy efficient businesses/individuals and a tax increase for energy inefficient businesses/individuals. Encouraging US businesses to become more energy efficient is clearly good for the US economy, especially as energy prices will continue to increase in the future.
You also presume that tariffs no longer exist as a policy mechanism, and that inefficiently produced goods which are effectively subsidised by foreign governments will be allowed to directly compete. This will cause trade problems for those countries subsidising their inefficient businesses.
I hope you realise that you have made your own set of ASS-U-ME's that bias where you stand on this issue. You take some controversial ideas as axioms, and pick and choose which unknowns you will demand irrefutable proof of.
You said: "carbon taxes that would demolish the economy". I have seen no credible evidence to back up this type of claim. In fact, everything of credibility I have read over the decades suggests the opposite, which is that transferring taxes from some of the places it is now (such as income) onto emissions/pollution/etc would have a long term benefit to the economy. This has the ultimate effect of reducing these emissions, reducing the externalisation of these costs onto society (and thus governments) to clean up, and ultimately reduces taxation. I have been a supporter of what is called the "Green Tax Shift" for a much longer time than I have been aware of climate change.
You appears to have a "sky is falling" attitude towards this beneficial economic correction. Taking your own tone, I believe it is you that has to come up with 100% irrefutable evidence of your claim of economic harm before anything you say can be taken seriously.
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A random Joe from the street?
I'm confused who we are talking about here. Copyright is a statutory monopoly, and as such always needs to be balanced with competition policy. The issue here is leveraging one monopoly (copyright) to potentially create another through "tied selling". That "other" market is the digital technology market.
Authors should be the ones that decide what technology they use to create their works, and audiences should be the ones that decide what technology audiences use to access those works.
I have very strong views when it comes to technology (obviously;-). Some might even say my views on technology property rights might be "religious" in nature *grins*. If an author wanted to say that only people from a specific religion were allowed to read their books people would be up at arms pretty quickly. I don't think that allowing copyright holders to impose technology choices on audiences is any more valid than allowing them to impose any other personal or lifestyle choices on audiences.
The irony here is that while copyright can be abused to create monopolies in the technology market, the copyright holders encouraging the monopolies are not themselves the beneficiaries. In the case of Lulu they have become a marketing arm of Adobe (the provider of the DRM system they chose), and it is Adobe and not Lulu (as publisher) or the author that is benefiting from this tied selling.
I do not disagree with the premise, but I do not think that there is an explicit obligation on the manufacturer to make the device "controllable".
I'm not suggesting anything about adding control that doesn't exist, but clarifying who has control when that control already exists.
Computer hardware is already controllable through software. Where control exists it should be in the hands of the owner, not any third party. That owner may opt to grant control to others, but owners should never be forced to to first wrestle control away from others. While some technologically sophisticated owners will be able to exert their own rights easily, a majority of citizens will be at a disadvantage.
Like I said, it should be fair game for him to put DRM in, and fair game for you (as an owner in full control of your possession) to remove/disable/circumvent it.
While this would be far better than the direction governments are going, I still believe it is insufficient. We could run around in circles with complex and largely unenforceable labelling laws that try to make clear what limitations foreign locks might have on technology when we have a far simpler situation of simply not allowing these types of foreign locks to begin with.
It is not, nor it should be, illegal for me to sell you a safe which is locked, without also selling you the key to it - so long as I clearly tell you so beforehand (because there's reasonable expectation on buyer's side that, normally, keys come with the safe).
Interesting example, but I don't think it qualifies. Most consumers realise that there is a key and who would have them when buying a safe, but are not as informed consumers when it comes to technology. Remember that most people believe that DRM is something that is applied to digital content, and are unaware of the DRM applied to hardware/software. Nearly all the politicians I speak with believe that content can make decisions on its own without the assistance of hardware, something far closer to science fiction than science.
Your analogy is also not the same thing as a safe that can't be opened when there are no keys isn't valuable to anyone. In this case keys do exist, it is just the previous owner or manufacturer that has the keys and these third parties claim the legal right to use these keys against you (the owner) at will.
Since you used a different analogy, does this suggest that you disagree with th
Re:Why I'm dropping endorsement/etc of Lulu
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Before we head down the DRM on devices thread, I hope I've made clear why I've dropped endorsement/etc of Lulu. They are not involved in devices, only content. They offer a choice of DRM and DRM-free to authors, something I don't personally believe authors should have a choice about for reasons that have to do with competition/anti-trust law (tied selling, refusal to deal, etc) and not copyright or property law. My opposition to DRM on content is for reasons different than my opposition to DRM on technology.
I endorsed Lulu in the past because I thought they were different than traditional publishers on this critical point, and their recent changes indicated to me that they are not different and thus should not be endorsed.
Enough on that....
"If any DRM features are explicitly enumerated to you before you purchase the device, I still don't see the problem."
I have yet to see a device that accurately explained how its use of foreign locks worked. Some of them gave temporary examples of some of the logic a DRM system used, but never the fact that the device is intended to be under the control of the manufacturer (executing logic determined unilaterally by the manufacturer) and not the person who possesses it.
I have blogged where I call DRM "Dishonest Relationship Misinformation. When I purchase something, that should mean that I should be able to control what I own (for lawful purposes of course). If someone else wants to retain control, then they should have to retain ownership and all the rights and responsibilities that go with that. Someone other than the owner can posses something, and that is called a rental (or similar relationship).
We have a whole series of laws in most countries that make rental relationships clear between the owners and renters. There are limits on what the owners can do, some rights of the renter are protected, and there are responsibilities for both parties.
By claiming something is "sold" and the purchaser does not gain ownership rights is simply dishonest, and opens the door to a whole series of abuses and misunderstandings. We need the right set of legal rules (rental) to be invoked when the relationship is in fact rental in nature.
So, I don't have a problem with digital technology being rented to people for those people who want that type of relationship. We can even have "rent to own" relationships where the device is unlocked after a contract expires. What I have a problem with is all the fallout of being dishonest about the relationship and claiming that a rental is a "sale" where your property rights aren't honoured.
While people recognize and will protect their property rights for their homes, cars and other such property, most are unaware of the attacks on the rights associated with information technology.
Imagine the builder of your home or the manufacturer of your car put locks on your doors and refused to give you the keys. They used the keys as a way to only allow you into your home when you have gained their permission to do so, and only under conditions they have set. The builder/manufacturer has made arrangements with other companies such that they will protect the interests of these third parties against you, the owner. The builder/manufacturer has also gone to various governments to make it illegal for you to remove their locks in order to put your own locks on, so that you can protect your property rights.
"You know what you're buying."
YOU may know what you are buying, as a fellow technical person. What far too many technical people seem to forget is that they are in an extreme minority. I have spent years doing my "I am holding up 4 things in my hand" presentation on explaining DRM, and few had even the slightest idea of how this technology worked befor
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Read the article at http://flora.ca/own. I am not talking about DRM on content which only limits interoperability to "authorised" devices. I do not own the copyrighted work simply because I purchase a copy.
What I'm talking about the DRM on the authorised device, which is something I do own.
When I am explaining DRM to politicians, I feel like I am Ralph Nader back in 1965. He explained that with an automobile accident there are two collisions: the car hits something, and the passenger hits the car. While automobile safety up to that point concentrated only on the first collision, it was quickly understood that safety features should concentrate on the second collision. This gave us dashboards that weren't made out of metal, seatbelts, air bags, and other such second-collision safety features. We have the same problem with DRM where policy makers think there is only one "digital lock" being discussed, when in fact there are two and it is the lock they are less aware of that is the source of most of the controversy.
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It may be that I should have kept that statement out of the comment, given it is not my greatest concern. Even if DRM did decrease infringement I do not think it is justified. I consider the harm to authors and their readers of anti-competitive locks on content and anti-property locks on technology to be greater than the harm of any amount of copyright infringement.
That said, I'll see where our discussion can take us.
If a computer can access the data and code, so can an adequately motivated and technically sophisticated infringer. Once a single person unlocks the content, they can then share it the same way they would have if the "copy control" never existed. Other less motivated or less technically sophisticated infringers would then use the DRM-free work, and the fact that they aren't personally motivated of technically sophisticated enough doesn't matter.
I don't think I can "prove" this as I accept this as an axiom. It isn't a "lie" as that would suggest I was saying something I thought were false.
What you pointed at was examples where a pattern seemed to exist. It would require analysing the other variables to know exactly why the statics being used to indirectly measure infringement showed differently in different scenarios. It is hard to believe a claim that the "only" variable is locked or unlocked content, and that unlocking content induced infringement. This is one of the flaws of many studies done on infringement -- they presume there are a far too limited number of variables. (IE: believing that the only variable differentiating the music industry in 1989 to 2009 is infringement, and then claiming that any revenue differences can be attributed to this one variable).
Notice that I said motivated infringer. This is one of the things that even the proponents will acknowledge, which is that copy control is only a "speed bump" that would deter only the least motivated infringers. It is also a "speed bump" for customers as well given all DRM inconveniences authorised users in some way, so needs to be analysed in that context. While every legitimate user is inconvenienced by DRM, it only takes one motivated and technically sophisticated infringer to make the DRM irrelevant.
I will ask a related question: Had someone said "making false (but common) claims that DRM would increase revenue", would you have had an objection? Lulu didn't claim that using DRM would increase revenue, only that DRM would "prevent piracy and unlicensed distribution."
Why I'm dropping endorsement/etc of Lulu
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Read some of the comments. There appears to be a lack of support for a boycott. Some because they don't consider DRM to be a problem or believe that it should be the authors choice, and some because they don't support the concept of consumer boycotts at all.
Here is why I'm likely to boycott Lulu, and recommend against them whenever asked. I've already cleaned up my storefront to only indicate this removal of support.
First I offer http://www.flora.ca/own for what I consider DRM to be, given there isn't a universal meaning for this acronym. It is also an explanation for less technical people about how DRM works, rather than the unscientific "magic" that some people believe it to be.
I believe that authors imposing technology brands on audiences (DRM on content) is even less legitimate/moral than audiences imposing prices on authors (IE: copyright infringement). I don't condone either, but consider DRM to be worse.
I consider the activity of locking technology such that the owner does not have the key (DRM on hardware/software) to be a direct attack on property rights. I consider this a form of "theft" that should be made clearly illegal -- not encouraged (through locks on content), legalised or legally protected.
In the case of Lulu the blog article was clearly encouraging authors to put DRM on their content, making false (but common) claims that DRM would reduce infringement. DRM on content then imposes/encourages specific brands of technology, specifically technology that is locked down against the interests of their owners.
Lulu is and should also be held to a higher standard. This is a company founded by Bob Young who knows better when it comes to the harms of DRM. If this were an old-economy publisher adding DRM-free digital distribution to an existing DRM-only system, this would be seen as a step in a positive direction. In this case this is a theoretically new-economy publisher adding and promoting DRM in addition to a long-standing DRM-free system, clearly a step in a negative direction.
The problem thus far is that politicians have been believing the "theft is theft" rhetoric from the special interest groups http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_Debate , not adequately realizing that these groups are opponents of tangible property rights.
Eventually the public will understand the technology behind this policy, and recognize who the anti-property/anti-capitalist special interest groups really are. (Hint: They use acronyms like RIAA/CRIA, MPAA/CMPDA, BSA/CAAST, etc).
Note: It is Creative Commons licensed, and able to be downloaded for free if you want to see what it said against the Liberal Bill C-60.
I am also one of those actively involved in this policy, and I could care less about partisan politics. This is an issue where the knowledge of individual people matter, not the parties. I work with informed MPs from any party, and disagree with misinformed MPs from any party. It just happens that right now the government is Conservative (and thus that is the party giving the silent treatment), and the most informed member on this area of policy is musician Charlie Angus who just happens to be with the NDP.
That doesn't make this a left-leaning issue, just a matter of coincidence. Some of our greatest opponents in this debate come from various creator "unions", and some of the strongest supporters are right-leaning supporters of tangible property rights http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/
People need to be looking at this issue in terms of possible election. During the election we need to identify people who will be helpful to us, and people who are harmful -- no matter what political party they are from. This area of policy is really about specific people, not about the parties.
The Liberals were proponents of this policy direction after tabling Bill C-60, the not-quite-as-bad-as-DMCA implementation, and generally were uninterested in any conversations. That is typical of the governing party to have party MPs just tow the party line. The Conservatives at the time said nothing relevant as a party, with individual MPs being all over the map. The Conservative party platform around Copyright didn't touch the hot-button issues (new right of non-interoperability for Copyright holders, legal protection for foreign locks placed on our hardware, will actual evidence of infringing activity be needed for P2P/etc cases, etc).
The Conservatives are now proponents of this policy direction after tabling C-61, the much-worse-than-DMCA implementation, and Conservative MPs are generally uninterested in any conversations. The Liberals are now all over the map, but mostly just opposing for the sake of opposing, and not being any more clear than the Conservatives were around C-60 on what their positions is.
The Bloc is currently a wildcard as they lost their Heritage critic who is running provincially rather than federally. They have historically sided with individual/independent creators, just as the NDP has. The NDP is now clearly on our side http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/4787 , after a switch of Heritage critics (from someone who didn't understand digital issues to a musician who does). The same type of thing can happen with the Bloc if the right well-informed MP gets elected and takes on this area of policy for the party.
That's the 4 parties with seats in the current parliament. During and immediately after an election is the best time for parties to form and articulate different policy directions, so we really need to be meeting with everyone (including candidates in the upcoming election, not just our current MPs) to determine who-is-who and to make sure they all know that constituents are concerned about this issue.
By the way -- anyone who doesn't know about http://digital-copyright.ca/ should check the site out and get involved in the forums. We also have a BLOG with a taxonomy topic for each riding, allowing us to build a library of articles about specific MPs and candidates.
I wrote a longer article for IT World Canada that explained the background of these levy systems, as well as suggested a way to analyze when they are a good idea and when they are a bad idea.
Yours is a typical response from an extreme partisan who only notices critiques when it is against members of your own clan.
Michael is non-partisan, and had much more to say about the Liberals given they were trying to do more. Are you thinking of the attacks of the current Conservative Heritage Minister for her questionable campaign financing which was largely ignored during the election because the Liberal Sam Bulte was far worse?
The fact that Michael has been harder on the Liberals doesn't mean that they were worse, just that they were in power longer. They actually tabled a stupid copyright bill (Bill C-60), while the Conservatives haven't tabled one yet -- but it is expected to be as bad if not worse given the closer ties the Conservatives have to the US government, the largest lobbiests to bring in bad copyright law.
The language used is very specific to avoid the types of problems you have raised.
THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon Parliament to prohibit the application of a technical protection measure to a device without the informed consent of the owner of the device, and to prohibit the conditioning of the supply of content to the purchase or use of a device which has a technical measure applied to it. We further call upon Parliament to recognise the right of citizens to personally control their own communication devices, and to choose software based on their own personal criteria.
First, please remember that DRM isn't "applied to content", but something that is "applied to devices". As long as Canadians are free to install whatever software they want on the hardware they own, even if US citizens are not, then what we have asked for is protected.
Content is encoded so that it is only interoperable with a subset of devices, but that is the extent to which DRM relates to content. All the controversy relating to DRM relates to the locking down of devices by people other than the owners of the devices, and the treatment of these owners as a threat that third parties (manufacturers of the devices) need to protect against.
The first part of our petition is a clear protection of property rights, and is accomplished in two ways. The first is to not have anti-circumvention legislation, which is the status-quo in Canada. There is no obligation for Canada to ratify the 1996 WIPO treaties, and it is largely foreign special interests (Major labels and studios, USTR, USPTO) that are calling for Canada to ratify these treaties.
This first part also suggests simple labelling requirements, in support of a free market, such that consumers will be able to tell before they purchase content whether it will be compatible with their hardware. The doesn't say that companies can't encrypt content to deliberately break interoperability (a "feature" of all DRM), but that if content is encrypted that it will be lawful for a Canadian to decode the content with the hardware/software of their choosing, and that the deliberately non-interoperable content require labelling. This is consistent with existing Canadian law, and the laws of many other countries, and is not radical at all.
The second part talking about "conditioning of the supply" is part of anti-trust or competition law in many countries, and is often called "tied selling". This is also not radical at all. Again, content can be encoded, but citizens must be free to convert the files to a format compatible with the devices that they own.
There is no conflict in having Canadians being able to legally device shift their content regardless of any technology used to deliberately reduce interoperability, but US citizens not being able to. There are many laws where Canada and the USA is different. This is no different than the fact that in Canada copyright is only life+50 rather than life+70, meaning that Canadians have access to public domain works a full 20 years before citizens in the USA. This is no different than how Canada has crown copyright (The Canadian government is a massive copyright holder), but the US government more fairly releases government works directly into the public domain. US citizens also benefit from a comprehensive Fair Use regime, while Canadians only have a much more limited Fair Dealings regime.
The last sentence should be an obvious recognition of the property rights of owners of computing hardware. While I would prefer to have all citizens of all countries have their basic property rights protected, there is no harm for Canadians to have their rights protected even if the rights of people in other countries are not.
This isn't a case of excessive regulation, given what we are proposing isn't new regulation at all but the application of existing regulations, and objecting to radically new regulations against our rights.
Speaking to a group of copyright holders about this issue, Stewart Baker, Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for policy, said, "It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer. And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it's important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days."
Nothing in this petition diminishes the legitimate rights of copyright holders. What it does is recognize the age-old saying, which is "Your right to swing your cane ends at my nose". IE: A copyright holders right to protect their copyright ends at my property rights.
The petition is to the Canadian parliament, and is on behalf of all owners of Information Technology -- not just those who choose any specific brand of hardware or software.
Our existing petitions have already had an important effect, letting politicians know that there are more constituencies in this issue than the incumbent industry associations. Our new petition tries to move away from the myths that DRM is about "content control" when in fact it is about "hardware control". This "hardware control" impacts your usage of hardware you own, regardless of whether you are using "premium content" or not.
This is also not a Microsoft and/or Apple issue, as these bad laws impact all users of technology whether or not they are ever a customer of Microsoft or Apple.
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/ "THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon Parliament to prohibit the application of a technical protection measure to a device without the informed consent of the owner of the device, and to prohibit the conditioning of the supply of content to the purchase or use of a device which has a technical measure applied to it. We further call upon Parliament to recognise the right of citizens to personally control their own communication devices, and to choose software based on their own personal criteria."
Canada never had "Fair Use" rights to begin with, but a much more limited "Fair Dealings" regime. While there are many ways in which the US copyright act is less balanced than Canada, there are areas such as crown copyright and Fair Use where the USA is much further ahead.
Many Canadian organizations are calling for Canada to adopt a "Fair Use" regime that would clarify that things such as time, space and device shifting are not infringements. I'm just glad the case that tested the legality of the VCR and Grokster happened in the USA and not in Canada! Canadians might have gotten a wake-up-call as to just how out-of-date our copyright act is in relation to new communications media and what most people presume is legal.
Digital Copyright Canada is also a great source for Canadian-specific information on Copyright, Patent, FLOSS and related issues. While not all of us are lawyers (Some are), we can help translate some of the myths in the media into what is actually in the copyright act or being proposed. We have two paper petitions to parliament, a letter writing campaign, and a BLOG taxonomy that allows you to see articles written about your own MP.
P.S. The Private Copying Levy (Referred to as a "tax" in various comments) only applies to recorded music, not movies or television. While it authorizes the making of private copies of music, it does not allow for private copies of anything else.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for your help!
I have a different question I'd love to see answers to. I'm a Canadian heading to London, England for two weeks and really want to have a data plan. I have an unlocked Nexus One phone ((GSM 3G 900/AWS/2100MHz) , which I use on WIND Mobile within Canada.
Thoughts?
I just wanted people to know that we have drafted a petition against ACTA. Politicians have no clue what is going on, and this is one tool among many to make it show up on the agenda.
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/acta/
You're not as familiar with Canadian law as you think you are.
The private copying regime came into existance in 1997, not the 1980's, and is only one year earlier than the USA's DMCA. It also only applies to audio recordings -- downloading anything else that is under copyright without permission is just as illegal in Canada as it is in the United States.
It is unfortunate that some of our idiotic politicians (mostly Liberals) mis-informed Canadians about the state of Canadian copyright law in their desire to pass DMCA style laws in Canada.
"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime."
You forgot the real issue here, which is that Bono, Gates and similar pseudo-philanthropists are actively involved with making a variety of "teaching" (sharing of knowledge) expensive and/or illegal. This is the core of what Bono is ranting about this time, suggesting the world's governments should go as far as the human rights violations in China to (theoretically -- no proof of "benefit") grant him more money.
There are those who think that making knowledge scarce, including criminalising private citizens owning and controlling their own communications technology, is the only way to make it possible to pay authors/inventors for their important contributions to society. This ignores all the experience and research to the contrary. Whether you believe this or not, you must admit that deliberately making knowledge scarce and thus more expensive greatly harms the interests of the worlds poor.
Sharing: the way to Make Poverty History.
The repercussions of deliberately making knowledge scarce will be an underlying issue that will show up in many global conflicts in the next decade, whether talking about poverty, western economic recovery or global climate change.
I think you are missing that this is not a letter that was sent from "the government" of Canada. This was someone who is an advisor in the Intellectual Property Branch of Environment Canada. http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/5100
For all I can tell from the government directory, this could be a private sector consultant. His entry doesn't look much different than my own when I'm on contract to the government. Try looking up my name in January in http://sage-geds.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/ , as I am returning to a contract at Agriculture Canada doing Linux Sysadmin/GIS work.
An email from me, regardless of what email address I use, should never be confused as an official statement from the Government of Canada.
"When you tax energy everyone will suffer"
Obviously we will have to agree to disagree, and leave it at that. You are trying to state as fact something that pretty much all evidence (including from countries that have actually done it) suggests otherwise.
There are none so blind as those who poke their own eyes out.
This is nonsense.
Taxation is not a yes/no question. When you transfer taxes from income/profit taxes onto energy this is effectively a tax decrease for energy efficient businesses/individuals and a tax increase for energy inefficient businesses/individuals. Encouraging US businesses to become more energy efficient is clearly good for the US economy, especially as energy prices will continue to increase in the future.
You also presume that tariffs no longer exist as a policy mechanism, and that inefficiently produced goods which are effectively subsidised by foreign governments will be allowed to directly compete. This will cause trade problems for those countries subsidising their inefficient businesses.
I hope you realise that you have made your own set of ASS-U-ME's that bias where you stand on this issue. You take some controversial ideas as axioms, and pick and choose which unknowns you will demand irrefutable proof of.
You said: "carbon taxes that would demolish the economy". I have seen no credible evidence to back up this type of claim. In fact, everything of credibility I have read over the decades suggests the opposite, which is that transferring taxes from some of the places it is now (such as income) onto emissions/pollution/etc would have a long term benefit to the economy. This has the ultimate effect of reducing these emissions, reducing the externalisation of these costs onto society (and thus governments) to clean up, and ultimately reduces taxation. I have been a supporter of what is called the "Green Tax Shift" for a much longer time than I have been aware of climate change.
You appears to have a "sky is falling" attitude towards this beneficial economic correction. Taking your own tone, I believe it is you that has to come up with 100% irrefutable evidence of your claim of economic harm before anything you say can be taken seriously.
I say we just call this "Strike 1" of the three strikes rules, and move forward with revoking Microsoft's Internet Connection.
For what I'm really saying, see: Word manipulation, hypocrisy, and the so-called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)
I'm confused who we are talking about here. Copyright is a statutory monopoly, and as such always needs to be balanced with competition policy. The issue here is leveraging one monopoly (copyright) to potentially create another through "tied selling". That "other" market is the digital technology market.
Authors should be the ones that decide what technology they use to create their works, and audiences should be the ones that decide what technology audiences use to access those works.
I have very strong views when it comes to technology (obviously ;-). Some might even say my views on technology property rights might be "religious" in nature *grins*. If an author wanted to say that only people from a specific religion were allowed to read their books people would be up at arms pretty quickly. I don't think that allowing copyright holders to impose technology choices on audiences is any more valid than allowing them to impose any other personal or lifestyle choices on audiences.
The irony here is that while copyright can be abused to create monopolies in the technology market, the copyright holders encouraging the monopolies are not themselves the beneficiaries. In the case of Lulu they have become a marketing arm of Adobe (the provider of the DRM system they chose), and it is Adobe and not Lulu (as publisher) or the author that is benefiting from this tied selling.
I'm not suggesting anything about adding control that doesn't exist, but clarifying who has control when that control already exists.
Computer hardware is already controllable through software. Where control exists it should be in the hands of the owner, not any third party. That owner may opt to grant control to others, but owners should never be forced to to first wrestle control away from others. While some technologically sophisticated owners will be able to exert their own rights easily, a majority of citizens will be at a disadvantage.
While this would be far better than the direction governments are going, I still believe it is insufficient. We could run around in circles with complex and largely unenforceable labelling laws that try to make clear what limitations foreign locks might have on technology when we have a far simpler situation of simply not allowing these types of foreign locks to begin with.
Interesting example, but I don't think it qualifies. Most consumers realise that there is a key and who would have them when buying a safe, but are not as informed consumers when it comes to technology. Remember that most people believe that DRM is something that is applied to digital content, and are unaware of the DRM applied to hardware/software. Nearly all the politicians I speak with believe that content can make decisions on its own without the assistance of hardware, something far closer to science fiction than science.
Your analogy is also not the same thing as a safe that can't be opened when there are no keys isn't valuable to anyone. In this case keys do exist, it is just the previous owner or manufacturer that has the keys and these third parties claim the legal right to use these keys against you (the owner) at will.
Since you used a different analogy, does this suggest that you disagree with th
Before we head down the DRM on devices thread, I hope I've made clear why I've dropped endorsement/etc of Lulu. They are not involved in devices, only content. They offer a choice of DRM and DRM-free to authors, something I don't personally believe authors should have a choice about for reasons that have to do with competition/anti-trust law (tied selling, refusal to deal, etc) and not copyright or property law. My opposition to DRM on content is for reasons different than my opposition to DRM on technology.
I endorsed Lulu in the past because I thought they were different than traditional publishers on this critical point, and their recent changes indicated to me that they are not different and thus should not be endorsed.
Enough on that....
"If any DRM features are explicitly enumerated to you before you purchase the device, I still don't see the problem."
I have yet to see a device that accurately explained how its use of foreign locks worked. Some of them gave temporary examples of some of the logic a DRM system used, but never the fact that the device is intended to be under the control of the manufacturer (executing logic determined unilaterally by the manufacturer) and not the person who possesses it.
I have blogged where I call DRM "Dishonest Relationship Misinformation. When I purchase something, that should mean that I should be able to control what I own (for lawful purposes of course). If someone else wants to retain control, then they should have to retain ownership and all the rights and responsibilities that go with that. Someone other than the owner can posses something, and that is called a rental (or similar relationship).
We have a whole series of laws in most countries that make rental relationships clear between the owners and renters. There are limits on what the owners can do, some rights of the renter are protected, and there are responsibilities for both parties.
By claiming something is "sold" and the purchaser does not gain ownership rights is simply dishonest, and opens the door to a whole series of abuses and misunderstandings. We need the right set of legal rules (rental) to be invoked when the relationship is in fact rental in nature.
So, I don't have a problem with digital technology being rented to people for those people who want that type of relationship. We can even have "rent to own" relationships where the device is unlocked after a contract expires. What I have a problem with is all the fallout of being dishonest about the relationship and claiming that a rental is a "sale" where your property rights aren't honoured.
See also: Petition to protect Information Technology property rights
"You know what you're buying."
YOU may know what you are buying, as a fellow technical person. What far too many technical people seem to forget is that they are in an extreme minority. I have spent years doing my "I am holding up 4 things in my hand" presentation on explaining DRM, and few had even the slightest idea of how this technology worked befor
Read the article at http://flora.ca/own. I am not talking about DRM on content which only limits interoperability to "authorised" devices. I do not own the copyrighted work simply because I purchase a copy.
What I'm talking about the DRM on the authorised device, which is something I do own.
You may also want to check out: The Two Locks of DRM:
It may be that I should have kept that statement out of the comment, given it is not my greatest concern. Even if DRM did decrease infringement I do not think it is justified. I consider the harm to authors and their readers of anti-competitive locks on content and anti-property locks on technology to be greater than the harm of any amount of copyright infringement.
That said, I'll see where our discussion can take us.
If a computer can access the data and code, so can an adequately motivated and technically sophisticated infringer. Once a single person unlocks the content, they can then share it the same way they would have if the "copy control" never existed. Other less motivated or less technically sophisticated infringers would then use the DRM-free work, and the fact that they aren't personally motivated of technically sophisticated enough doesn't matter.
I don't think I can "prove" this as I accept this as an axiom. It isn't a "lie" as that would suggest I was saying something I thought were false.
What you pointed at was examples where a pattern seemed to exist. It would require analysing the other variables to know exactly why the statics being used to indirectly measure infringement showed differently in different scenarios. It is hard to believe a claim that the "only" variable is locked or unlocked content, and that unlocking content induced infringement. This is one of the flaws of many studies done on infringement -- they presume there are a far too limited number of variables. (IE: believing that the only variable differentiating the music industry in 1989 to 2009 is infringement, and then claiming that any revenue differences can be attributed to this one variable).
Notice that I said motivated infringer. This is one of the things that even the proponents will acknowledge, which is that copy control is only a "speed bump" that would deter only the least motivated infringers. It is also a "speed bump" for customers as well given all DRM inconveniences authorised users in some way, so needs to be analysed in that context. While every legitimate user is inconvenienced by DRM, it only takes one motivated and technically sophisticated infringer to make the DRM irrelevant.
I will ask a related question: Had someone said "making false (but common) claims that DRM would increase revenue", would you have had an objection? Lulu didn't claim that using DRM would increase revenue, only that DRM would "prevent piracy and unlicensed distribution."
Here is why I'm likely to boycott Lulu, and recommend against them whenever asked. I've already cleaned up my storefront to only indicate this removal of support.
First I offer http://www.flora.ca/own for what I consider DRM to be, given there isn't a universal meaning for this acronym. It is also an explanation for less technical people about how DRM works, rather than the unscientific "magic" that some people believe it to be.
I believe that authors imposing technology brands on audiences (DRM on content) is even less legitimate/moral than audiences imposing prices on authors (IE: copyright infringement). I don't condone either, but consider DRM to be worse.
I consider the activity of locking technology such that the owner does not have the key (DRM on hardware/software) to be a direct attack on property rights. I consider this a form of "theft" that should be made clearly illegal -- not encouraged (through locks on content), legalised or legally protected.
In the case of Lulu the blog article was clearly encouraging authors to put DRM on their content, making false (but common) claims that DRM would reduce infringement. DRM on content then imposes/encourages specific brands of technology, specifically technology that is locked down against the interests of their owners.
Lulu is and should also be held to a higher standard. This is a company founded by Bob Young who knows better when it comes to the harms of DRM. If this were an old-economy publisher adding DRM-free digital distribution to an existing DRM-only system, this would be seen as a step in a positive direction. In this case this is a theoretically new-economy publisher adding and promoting DRM in addition to a long-standing DRM-free system, clearly a step in a negative direction.
I hope that tangible property rights will trump the business models of special interest groups.
Petition to protect Information Technology property rights
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/
The problem thus far is that politicians have been believing the "theft is theft" rhetoric from the special interest groups http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_Debate , not adequately realizing that these groups are opponents of tangible property rights.
Eventually the public will understand the technology behind this policy, and recognize who the anti-property/anti-capitalist special interest groups really are. (Hint: They use acronyms like RIAA/CRIA, MPAA/CMPDA, BSA/CAAST, etc).
Michael Geist was the editor of an entire book that was critical of the Liberal C-60, so it is simply invalid to suggest this is a partisan issue.
http://www.irwinlaw.com/books.aspx?bookid=120
Note: It is Creative Commons licensed, and able to be downloaded for free if you want to see what it said against the Liberal Bill C-60.
I am also one of those actively involved in this policy, and I could care less about partisan politics. This is an issue where the knowledge of individual people matter, not the parties. I work with informed MPs from any party, and disagree with misinformed MPs from any party. It just happens that right now the government is Conservative (and thus that is the party giving the silent treatment), and the most informed member on this area of policy is musician Charlie Angus who just happens to be with the NDP.
That doesn't make this a left-leaning issue, just a matter of coincidence. Some of our greatest opponents in this debate come from various creator "unions", and some of the strongest supporters are right-leaning supporters of tangible property rights http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/
People need to be looking at this issue in terms of possible election. During the election we need to identify people who will be helpful to us, and people who are harmful -- no matter what political party they are from. This area of policy is really about specific people, not about the parties.
The Liberals were proponents of this policy direction after tabling Bill C-60, the not-quite-as-bad-as-DMCA implementation, and generally were uninterested in any conversations. That is typical of the governing party to have party MPs just tow the party line. The Conservatives at the time said nothing relevant as a party, with individual MPs being all over the map. The Conservative party platform around Copyright didn't touch the hot-button issues (new right of non-interoperability for Copyright holders, legal protection for foreign locks placed on our hardware, will actual evidence of infringing activity be needed for P2P/etc cases, etc).
The Conservatives are now proponents of this policy direction after tabling C-61, the much-worse-than-DMCA implementation, and Conservative MPs are generally uninterested in any conversations. The Liberals are now all over the map, but mostly just opposing for the sake of opposing, and not being any more clear than the Conservatives were around C-60 on what their positions is.
The Bloc is currently a wildcard as they lost their Heritage critic who is running provincially rather than federally. They have historically sided with individual/independent creators, just as the NDP has. The NDP is now clearly on our side http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/4787 , after a switch of Heritage critics (from someone who didn't understand digital issues to a musician who does). The same type of thing can happen with the Bloc if the right well-informed MP gets elected and takes on this area of policy for the party.
That's the 4 parties with seats in the current parliament. During and immediately after an election is the best time for parties to form and articulate different policy directions, so we really need to be meeting with everyone (including candidates in the upcoming election, not just our current MPs) to determine who-is-who and to make sure they all know that constituents are concerned about this issue.
By the way -- anyone who doesn't know about http://digital-copyright.ca/ should check the site out and get involved in the forums. We also have a BLOG with a taxonomy topic for each riding, allowing us to build a library of articles about specific MPs and candidates.
Sorry, but copyright infringement isn't anything remotely like "theft".
Jefferson Debate: A Godwin's law for copyright discussions?
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_Debate
I wrote a longer article for IT World Canada that explained the background of these levy systems, as well as suggested a way to analyze when they are a good idea and when they are a bad idea.
Yours is a typical response from an extreme partisan who only notices critiques when it is against members of your own clan.
Michael is non-partisan, and had much more to say about the Liberals given they were trying to do more. Are you thinking of the attacks of the current Conservative Heritage Minister for her questionable campaign financing which was largely ignored during the election because the Liberal Sam Bulte was far worse?
The fact that Michael has been harder on the Liberals doesn't mean that they were worse, just that they were in power longer. They actually tabled a stupid copyright bill (Bill C-60), while the Conservatives haven't tabled one yet -- but it is expected to be as bad if not worse given the closer ties the Conservatives have to the US government, the largest lobbiests to bring in bad copyright law.
Content is encoded so that it is only interoperable with a subset of devices, but that is the extent to which DRM relates to content. All the controversy relating to DRM relates to the locking down of devices by people other than the owners of the devices, and the treatment of these owners as a threat that third parties (manufacturers of the devices) need to protect against.
The first part of our petition is a clear protection of property rights, and is accomplished in two ways. The first is to not have anti-circumvention legislation, which is the status-quo in Canada. There is no obligation for Canada to ratify the 1996 WIPO treaties, and it is largely foreign special interests (Major labels and studios, USTR, USPTO) that are calling for Canada to ratify these treaties.
This first part also suggests simple labelling requirements, in support of a free market, such that consumers will be able to tell before they purchase content whether it will be compatible with their hardware. The doesn't say that companies can't encrypt content to deliberately break interoperability (a "feature" of all DRM), but that if content is encrypted that it will be lawful for a Canadian to decode the content with the hardware/software of their choosing, and that the deliberately non-interoperable content require labelling. This is consistent with existing Canadian law, and the laws of many other countries, and is not radical at all.
The second part talking about "conditioning of the supply" is part of anti-trust or competition law in many countries, and is often called "tied selling". This is also not radical at all. Again, content can be encoded, but citizens must be free to convert the files to a format compatible with the devices that they own.
There is no conflict in having Canadians being able to legally device shift their content regardless of any technology used to deliberately reduce interoperability, but US citizens not being able to. There are many laws where Canada and the USA is different. This is no different than the fact that in Canada copyright is only life+50 rather than life+70, meaning that Canadians have access to public domain works a full 20 years before citizens in the USA. This is no different than how Canada has crown copyright (The Canadian government is a massive copyright holder), but the US government more fairly releases government works directly into the public domain. US citizens also benefit from a comprehensive Fair Use regime, while Canadians only have a much more limited Fair Dealings regime.
The last sentence should be an obvious recognition of the property rights of owners of computing hardware. While I would prefer to have all citizens of all countries have their basic property rights protected, there is no harm for Canadians to have their rights protected even if the rights of people in other countries are not.
This isn't a case of excessive regulation, given what we are proposing isn't new regulation at all but the application of existing regulations, and objecting to radically new regulations against our rights.
If you are curious what I would say, just ask.
Speaking to a group of copyright holders about this issue, Stewart Baker, Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for policy, said, "It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer. And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it's important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days."
Nothing in this petition diminishes the legitimate rights of copyright holders. What it does is recognize the age-old saying, which is "Your right to swing your cane ends at my nose". IE: A copyright holders right to protect their copyright ends at my property rights.
The petition is to the Canadian parliament, and is on behalf of all owners of Information Technology -- not just those who choose any specific brand of hardware or software.
Our existing petitions have already had an important effect, letting politicians know that there are more constituencies in this issue than the incumbent industry associations. Our new petition tries to move away from the myths that DRM is about "content control" when in fact it is about "hardware control". This "hardware control" impacts your usage of hardware you own, regardless of whether you are using "premium content" or not.
This is also not a Microsoft and/or Apple issue, as these bad laws impact all users of technology whether or not they are ever a customer of Microsoft or Apple.
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/
"THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon Parliament to prohibit the application of a technical protection measure to a device without the informed consent of the owner of the device, and to prohibit the conditioning of the supply of content to the purchase or use of a device which has a technical measure applied to it. We further call upon Parliament to recognise the right of citizens to personally control their own communication devices, and to choose software based on their own personal criteria."
Canada never had "Fair Use" rights to begin with, but a much more limited "Fair Dealings" regime. While there are many ways in which the US copyright act is less balanced than Canada, there are areas such as crown copyright and Fair Use where the USA is much further ahead.
Many Canadian organizations are calling for Canada to adopt a "Fair Use" regime that would clarify that things such as time, space and device shifting are not infringements. I'm just glad the case that tested the legality of the VCR and Grokster happened in the USA and not in Canada! Canadians might have gotten a wake-up-call as to just how out-of-date our copyright act is in relation to new communications media and what most people presume is legal.
See: Copyright-related Policy summary for CLUE: Canada's Association for Free/Libre and Open Source Software.
Digital Copyright Canada is also a great source for Canadian-specific information on Copyright, Patent, FLOSS and related issues. While not all of us are lawyers (Some are), we can help translate some of the myths in the media into what is actually in the copyright act or being proposed. We have two paper petitions to parliament, a letter writing campaign, and a BLOG taxonomy that allows you to see articles written about your own MP.
P.S. The Private Copying Levy (Referred to as a "tax" in various comments) only applies to recorded music, not movies or television. While it authorizes the making of private copies of music, it does not allow for private copies of anything else.