Canadian DMCA Won't Include Consumer Rights 192
An anonymous reader writes "As protests
mount over the Canadian DMCA, law professor Michael Geist is now reporting
that the government plans to delay addressing fair use and consumer
copyright concerns such as the blank media tax for years. While the
U.S. copyright lobby gets their DMCA, consumers will get a panel to
eventually consider possible changes to the law. Many Canadians
are responding today with a mass
phone-in to Industry Minister Jim Prentice to protest the policy
plans."
Those pesky rights of citizens (Score:3, Informative)
Re:FIRST TROUT! (Score:5, Informative)
I plan on attending and srongly urge any fellow Calgarians to come to the open house.
Sent to my MP, and the two ministers (Score:5, Informative)
I am writing as a resident of Vancouver and citizen of Canada.
I would like to express my strong opposition to the changes to Canadian copyright law being proposed.
Canadian laws must work for the benefit of all Canadians. Not for specific industries at the expense of everyday citizens, and especially not foreign-owned corporations.
Artists, musicians, filmmakers and performers have a right to profit from their creations. But digital technology and the Internet have revolutionized the production and distribution of media, rendering obsolete the physical products around which copyrighted works have been based in the past.
The burden is on publishers and creators to innovate and find ways to profit from their works that are acceptable to consumers and consistent with a world in which sharing media is free of cost and effort. It should not be the Government of Canada's role to prop up antiquated business models or forcibly subsidize industries that are unable to adapt to 21st Century realities. Crippling technology and placing onerous and chilling restrictions on the ability of citizens to communicate does not serve the public interest.
I am concerned that this new bill to change copyright law will favour industry and lacks any meaningful input from consumer groups or experts on modern copyright law such as Dr. Michael Geist (U of O). Any bill should consider first the rights and interests of the Canadian public and consumers, before US lobby groups or international bodies.
In the words of Canadian science-fiction author and writer Cory Doctorow, "The US's approach to enforcing copyright in the digital age has resulted in 20,000 lawsuits against music fans, technology companies being sued out of existence for making new multi-purpose tools, and has not put one penny into the pocket of an artist or reduced downloading one bit. The USA stepped into uncharted territory in 1998 with the DMCA and fell off a cliff -- that was reckless, but following them off the cliff is insane."
Thank-you.
Re:FIRST TROUT! (Score:5, Informative)
1318 Centre Street NE, Suite 105, Calgary, AB
Website here: http://jimprentice.ca/ [jimprentice.ca]
Don't forget to cc Scott Brison (Score:2, Informative)
Here is the *REAL* page that counts. (Score:2, Informative)
LEGIS info -- 39th Parliament - 2nd session (from Oct. 16 on) House of Commons Government Bills [parl.gc.ca]
This is where you see the bills passed for the parliament review. As of now (Dec 7), there is no mention of any intellectual property/copyright bill.
This is a page to watch!
Re:Low/High ranking means nothing in Harper theocr (Score:1, Informative)
For the record the Atlantic provinces wanted more than their share, plain and simple. Why should they get special treatment? Before you respond, I'll let you know I am not from Ontario or Quebec. My province get the shaft as well, but this is not a case thats worth bitching about.
As for cutting taxes, Harper made life a fuck of a lot easier for students. Tax free scholarships have saved the wife and I over 30k. I have heard a lot of moaning about the GST cut, I think it will help the economy and the % will add up at the end of the year for me and you.
Harper said that the Kyoto protocol is a global socialist wealth redistribution scheme, and he is correct. I repeat, I do not like this guy, but he spoke a rare truth on that one.
I am a reformer as well, but I think that we should not be bitching. Comparing Harper to Bush is plain nonsense. Afterall, with the hardcore reformer(even as the lesser evil) comes all the religious BS. Thats when we get into Bush territory.
Why Canada's Copyright Revision is Bad (Score:5, Informative)
But the machine is inflexible. It doesn't know whether it's ok for a student to copy a journal article, for a researcher to look for security or privacy flaws, for a Microsoft customer to play music on an iPod. So the software prevents activities which are otherwise perfectly legitimate and legal. Where copyright grants control over some uses of a work, this technology (DRM) grants control over all uses. And the U.S. version of this law, the DMCA, by banning all circumvention regardless of the purpose, makes that control inviolable.
That's the first problem.
The second problem is that to decode the content, this software must be present in every device that plays it back. It's in your cell phone. It's in your DVD player. It's in your computer. In order for the law to be effective, it forbids you to interfere with the operation of the devices you own. It becomes illegal to unlock your cell phone to use it with a different wireless provider. It becomes illegal to play DVDs on operating systems other than those made by Apple and Microsoft. The only one who can determine what your devices can and can't do is someone else. You lose control of your own property.
But that's not all.
Access must only be given to the right people (companies that make the technology - DVD players, operating systems, etc.) but not to the wrong people (you and me). Who decides? The answer must be a single company or organization. They make the rules about who can play back content - and who can encode content too. You can't publish protected music for the iPod without Apple's permission. You can't make a device to play it back without Apple's permission either. These companies and organizations have tremendous monopoly power. Control of the content requires control of the technology (and of our property), which becomes control of the market.
That control does not lie with artists, authors or musicians. In fact, because the technology is primarily American, it doesn't lie with Canadians at all. This law would place Canadian innovation and Canadian culture in a position of dependency relative to the United States.
That's only the part of the law we know about. There will be more.
Oh yes, I should mention - the copy prevention mechanisms don't work. They might stop you and me from making legitimate use of material, but they don't stop the serious pirates from profiting off someone else's work - after which ordinary folks can use those pirated copies, which, because they are digital, are perfect. This raises the question: are these technologies and laws really meant to stop piracy - are they really meant to benefit creators - or are they intended to consolidate the power of the monopoly and cartel positions of certain publishers and technology companies?
Re:How Wonderful Canada Is (Score:3, Informative)
Canada is a wonderful country which is run by plutocrats rather like its counterpart to the South. The vast majority of the money and power is concentrated into a few hands. The social contract gives ordinary people a slightly better shake than their American counterparts get, but if you think it's a Utopian wonderland, you should really hang out there for a few years.
Your statement is right on the money. Mod parent up.
For our American readers, imagine you get one vote for all of the US federal government. You cannot vote independently for your Congress, Senate or Executive branch (President). The prime minister can even choose when to have the next election up to 5 years out! So when you vote for the leader, he in effect controls Congress and the Senate.
Oh, an no recall. After elected the PM can and often does what the hell they want without regard to their constituents or voters at large.
Given the nature of how parties fund themselves, it is plutocracy for sure. Needs to change but first we need to find a leader who is insightful and not so corruptible.
I do disagree about the "slightly better" shake. The hidden price Canadians pay for this is quite high.
I'm a published author, and laws against on-line c (Score:3, Informative)
My book, "Using Samba" is available free on-line, and
therefor attracts readers.
Because it's horribly bulky to print oneself, my readers
happily buy professionally printed copies from my publisher.
This caused the book to have been O'Reilly's best seller
for the quarter in which the first edition came out.
I do not wish the Government of Canada to restrict in any
way my freedom to distribute on-line copies, or to let
others, well meaning but without understanding, interfere in
my electronic distribution of the book. That blatantly
interferes with my making money from it.
Sincerely,
David Collier-Brown
Going at 2:30 for a group message: join us! (Score:3, Informative)
My proposal is to deliver one message and have everybody just walk out without asking questions or getting into debate. We'll leave behind a printed copy with names, addresses, phone numbers on it of people who couldn't be there. It's not a "petition", its just a threat. (Why mess around.) The proposed text I posted at the CUUG mailing list is:
Mr. Prentice, my companions and I are members or friends of the Calgary Unix Users Group,
basically an organization of mostly middle-aged computer professionals that operate and
program the kind of servers that run large corporations and the Internet itself. As
members of the high-tech industry, we have been monitoring the copyright debate for
over a decade now and we are all convinced that most industry-backed copyright
legislation is bad for the industry itself.
The same kind of people opposed radio 80 years ago because it 'gave away free music' and
the VCR 25 years ago when Jack Valenti infamously described it as being to Hollywood
what the Boston Strangler was to women. Your proposed legislation could easily damage
both hi-tech and artistic content industries alike as much as the proposed laws against
VCRs and radio would have if legislators of those times had been foolish enough to
enact them.
We see it as our duty as citizens, therefore, to let you know that if anything remotely
resembling this legislation is passed by this government that we will have to cast
aside all our former political preferences in favour of ending conservative party rule.
We are not talking about changing our votes. We are talking about donating to your strongest
opponents, fund-raising for those opponents, working for those opponents. Your own seat
here in Calgary is no-doubt safe, so we as rational engineers will of course devote our
efforts to seats where the conservative party is weakest. At our age and income, we can
simply afford to travel to those ridings at election times and devote a few vacation days to the
noble cause of firing you, if you do not reconsider this ill-advised legislation.
Thank you for your attention.