Canadian DMCA Coming This Spring 153
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian government is reportedly ready to introduce copyright reform legislation this spring, provided that no election is called. The new bill would move Canada far closer to the U.S. on copyright, with DMCA-style anti-circumvention legislation that prohibits circumvention of DRM systems and bans software and mod chips that can be used to circumvent such systems."
I am skeptical (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, it's my understanding that the current state of copyright in Canada is that it is not the form in which a copyrighted work is held (ie DVD, CD, mp3, avi), but the manner in which it is used. So, you can have a zillion mp3s for personal use, but you cannot use them in a publication, or broadcast them without the express consent of the copyright holders.
In my mind, it would be very hard to change current law in such a way so as to preserve the status quo, such as libraries.
Plus, they already tax removable media to compensate the rights-holders of all major video and audio media(while screwing independants... which is another topic for another day), so you'd think that they would either have to remove that levy, or all people to continue doing what they are doing.
Reply on previous version (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank you for your letter regarding Copyright Reform.
I supported C-60 I would do so again if a similar Bill is reintroduced in the House of Commons. Bill C-60 only made it to the First Reading stage and subsequently fell off the Orders for debate.
With any amendment that is put forth to a Government Bill, whether through the debate stage or committee stage, it must be balanced in such a way that it doesn't make the legislation appear to be too ambiguous. I as a Member of Parliament I would need to see the how Digital Rights Management (DRM) component of any new legislation would affect not only the industry but also the consumer and whether individual privacy rights would be affected?
There has yet to be any new Copyright legislation to come before the House of Commons in this session. I will note your concerns if it eventually does.
Sincerely,
Hon. Andrew Telegdi, P.C., M.P.
Kitchener-Waterloo
pay double (Score:3, Interesting)
Taking Sweden as an example, there they tax all storage media (not just "removable" media) with this levy. Actually it's not really a tax (taxing illegal activities is illegal itself), but a state protected fee which a private organization is allowed to collect and without insight into how, distribute parts of the sum to a secret list of copyright holders.
So I guess you have to look forward to being coerced by your government into paying levies (which should exempt you by covering any IP loss right?) and then be put behind bars. It's a hypocrisy, but hey at least it isn't the first in the law book.
Re:pay double (Score:5, Interesting)
canada has a similar law, although it only applies to removable media such as blank cds. now, normally i like the levy, since it helps keep the copyright rottweilers at bay, but consider this...
i'm in this rock band [telus.net]. we are, as one local journalist stated, "startlingly unsuccessful". so, we record and release a compact disc. it's a run of 500 and we sell, maybe, ten (thanks mom!) and lose a tonne of money. this is not an unusual scenario.
but the kicker is this: we pay the levy on the blank cd's we use for our release. this means that some major-label canadian artist (ms. levign perhaps) is actually making money off of my band's record while my band is losing money.
amazing stuff.
We're having this battle in New Zealand now... (Score:3, Interesting)
- DRMs (TPMs, in the jargon) may *in theory* be used to protect artists'/publishers' rights, but in practice they are far more often used to grant publishers new rights, far beyond what the law allows. For example: the copyright holder *has no right*, under law, to say when and how you're allowed to access the media that you've lawfully purchased. Yet this is the "right" that TPMs are most commonly used to "enforce".
- Therefore, TPMs are used by publishers unilaterally to rewrite their own rights. If it's illegal to circumvent anything calling itself a TPM, then all other "rights" granted to consumers are worthless.
- So the million-dollar question is this: "Who do you think should be responsible for defining publishers' rights in respect of copyright material? Publishers themselves, or democratically answerable politicians?"
Good luck.
Too bad (Score:4, Interesting)
And I will continue to apply hacks wherever needed to get around designed weaknesses/inabilities/stupidity. For example, I have a hard disk in my PS2 - I need a modchip to load games off this disk. I load all of my store-bought games onto this disk because if I keep using the PS2's DVD drive, it will almost certainly fail within a few years. I used to use a "digital video stabilizer" to strip Macrovision scrambling off of DVDs so I could watch them - the only way between my player and TV was through my VCR (it converted co-ax to composite) and the Macrovision messed with my VCR, so I removed it. I pity the fool who tries to charge me for something like this.