Haper's New Copyright Laws

[Battletoads]

As some of you may know on Wednesday Harper's conservatives introduced their unpopular americanized copywrite legislation for third time.

The main points of this bill are as follows:

Breaking digital locks under the new bill would now be illegal. Essentially this would make it illegal to transfer music from most cds onto a computer. Transferring movie from any dvd to a computer would also be illegal. The maximum fine for breaking a lock is 5000 dollars

Creating more than one copy of a song for personal use would be illegal. This means if you have an MP3 you got from a cd on your computer, and you want to transfer it to another device (ex: another computer, an mp3 player ect), well you legally wouldn't be able to do it. The maximum fine is 5000 dollars.

These are the two major changes, pretty much everything else contained in this legislation is already legal/illegal under current copywrite laws.

The full text of the of bill C-32 can be found here:

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4580265&Language=e&Mode=1

[dre]

As some of you may know on Wednesday Harper's conservatives introduced their unpopular americanized copywrite legislation for third time.

The main points of this bill are as follows:

Breaking digital locks under the new bill would now be illegal. Essentially this would make it illegal to transfer music from most cds onto a computer. Transferring movie from any dvd to a computer would also be illegal. The maximum fine for breaking a lock is 5000 dollars

Creating more than one copy of a song for personal use would be illegal. This means if you have an MP3 you got from a cd on your computer, and you want to transfer it to another device (ex: another computer, an mp3 player ect), well you legally wouldn't be able to do it. The maximum fine is 5000 dollars.

These are the two major changes, pretty much everything else contained in this legislation is already legal/illegal under current copywrite laws.

The full text of the of bill C-32 can be found here:

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4580265&Language=e&Mode=1

This is terrible legislation and violates the principles of copyright law. When you purchase a movie or a cd you are buying a license to use that media for life. The license does not expire. What the entertainment industry has been trying to do for a long time now is license the actual media... which is theft because the user is deprived of the use of their license when the media wears out. They must then go back to the vendor and purchase another set of media and in doing so they are being stolen from. They are paying again for an intellectual property license they already own. The entertainment industry has stolen billions from users with this scam.

They should not be trying to tell you what you can do with the material, only how you can use it. You should be able to copy of a piece of media as many times as you want to whichever kinds of media you want as long as you dont use the material in a way that violates the terms of the license you purchased to use the content.

Intellectual property laws are badly in need of reform, but this is the exact opposite kind of reform needed.

[BubberMiley]

From my understanding, I think the OP's summary is incorrect. It will now be legal to dump the CD you bought onto your personal computer and MP3 player (so long as you're not making money by doing so). Currently it is not. It would only be illegal if you have to break a digital lock to do so. Most CDs don't have such locks.

Commercial DVDs, however, pretty much all have these locks, so that will still be illegal.

I think the legislation is good in that it caps the amount an individual can be fined for non-profit copyright infringement at $5000. Right now, I believe it is $20K per item. There needs to be consequences, but those consequences needn't ruin people.

It's long overdue legislation and a reasonable balance. I don't think it goes far enough, however, in terms of clarifying the use of the Internet. By its nature, using the Internet infringes copyright by making caches. Canada doesn't have "fair use" provisions like the U.S., and the "fair dealing" provisions are very unclear. I think this still needs more work.

[Smallc]

I believe that changes to the fair dealings provisions to allow the use of copyrighted material are part of the legislation. IMO, it's good and fair legislation.

[Battletoads]

I believe that changes to the fair dealings provisions to allow the use of copyrighted material are part of the legislation. IMO, it's good and fair legislation.

So you think good and fair legislation allows for all your rights to go out the window if the there is any form of drm lock on material?

Tell me how is backing up a collection on my computer hurting anyone?

Edited June 4, 2010 by Battletoads

[Smallc]

So you think good and fair legislation allows for all your rights to go out the window if the there is any form of drm lock on material?

I certainly don't see it as an infringement of my rights.

[BubberMiley]

So you think good and fair legislation allows for all your rights to go out the window if the there is any form of drm lock on material?

Seems it's upholding my rights to protect my copyrighted material with a digital lock if I so choose.

[Battletoads]

Seems it's upholding my rights to protect my copyrighted material with a digital lock if I so choose.

Making a back up of something violates the copyright holders rights?

[bjre]

Cops will not check law maker's home to find if he has something "copied", even they found, the lawmaker will be able to find reason to "justify" it. was he himself a lawyer?

Only those who are poor, who earn below 10 dollar's an hour, who are not able to hire a lawyer, they are likely be bullied with the new additional smoke gun. There are already too more than enough laws can be used to bully them at any time when need.

Will this good to economy? I don't think so, I think most players will not choose to play those pay games and instead just try to find from the plenty of free ones. So that less people will have chance to realize if the pay game are good or not, less people will even consider about buy a "legal" copy someday because they will never know that.

$5000, that could be 5 month salary for those poor people, that's enough to generate more crimes after that. Cops will happy about that, because they can have reason for asking for more tax dollars. And the cost of Canadian products can increase again because of the tax increase and make EA go out of Canada and move to India completely someday.

Edited June 4, 2010 by bjre

[BubberMiley]

Making a back up of something violates the copyright holders rights?

If you didn't pay for the rights to make a backup, yes. If they add a digital lock, that's clearly not part of the deal.

[August1991]

This is terrible legislation and violates the principles of copyright law. When you purchase a movie or a cd you are buying a license to use that media for life.

There is no such principle. Indeed, such an idea makes no more sense than to assert that when you buy a car, you have the right to drive it for the rest of your life.

Dre, you seem to want to define property rights your own way. The world doesn't work like that. Simply because you were able to take things in the past without paying does not mean that you will be able to do so in the future.

DRM and restrictions on copying files are legitimate methods to ensure that artists receive compensation for their creation. Without this compensation, we would not have the cultural output that we all enjoy.

[susan]

I think it's very great.

[DrGreenthumb]

Bubbs I can't believe you support this bullshit!????

[bjre]

If you didn't pay for the rights to make a backup, yes. If they add a digital lock, that's clearly not part of the deal.

If you buy a car, it is clear, you have the right to break any part of it to decorate your house.

If you buy a lock, you are clearly have the right to break it at any time when you lost the key or when you don't lost key.

[BubberMiley]

Bubbs I can't believe you support this bullshit!????

I think one of the coolest things about our society is the ability to make a living from one's intellectual property. I think we would all be poorer if that system were destroyed.

[bjre]

I think one of the coolest things about our society is the ability to make a living from one's intellectual property. I think we would all be poorer if that system were destroyed.

In history, patent laws encourage people invent more.

Now more and more people becomes intelligent, new things are just a problem who do it first rather than who can, the intellectual property laws becomes more and more a simply tool for some fat cats to take more money, rather than for the people who directly create it. it becomes a block to apply new technologies. It prevent people from using new things. It causes great waste of resource of society and lost of wealth.

One example is some arithmetic coding, it has some advantage than many other encoding methods, but it has not been used widely simply because it was patented. Now in digital video, Huffman coding is widely used in MPEG1/MPEG2/H264 and almost all standard.

Similar cases exists everywhere.

PC developed much faster than Apple because IBM open the detail of it and make developers easy to develop compatible hardware and software.

Lots of "patented" product takes code from open source code when actually it exist simply because it against copy right, for example, GNU:

GNU Is Not Unix (GNU)

Developed beginning in 1984 as a Unix-style OS (operating system), GNU (pronounced Guh-NEW) is the brainchild of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) professor Richard Stallman and other founders of the FSF (Free Software Foundation). Members of the FSF believe users should be free to copy, redistribute, and reimagine any software they own, with the stipulation that the newly altered software also be distributed with the permission to alter it and pass it along further.

An employee at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab since 1971, Stallman became disillusioned when software makers in the 1980s began insisting on proprietary software usage agreements barring users from making copies of a program or altering its source code without specific permission and paying a license fee. Stallman saw this as a tactic for controlling users, ensuring a maximum of sales to software manufacturers while robbing users of their ability to help improve the software.

So Stallman decided to create his own community of software-sharing developers by creating a Unix-compatible OS, GNU. In 1985, having quit MIT to work on GNU full-time, Stallman and several supporters founded the FSF, a tax-exempt charity for free software development that would let them seek donations and grants (much of their income still comes from selling software). Utilizing a large number of volunteer programmers, the FSF developed the GNU Task List, a list of applications, games, and features that the foundation could work on adding to GNU to serve users. Other GNU products, such as the GNU Privacy Guard encryption software, were developed to keep users from having to resort to proprietary software for any need.

Edited June 5, 2010 by bjre

[BubberMiley]

Now more and more people becomes intelligent, new things are just a problem who do it first rather than who can, the intellectual property laws becomes more and more a simply tool for some fat cats to take more money, rather than for the people who directly create it.

I think one nice royalty cheque would change your position on this issue 180 degrees.

[Bryan]

DRM is evil. It does nothing to stop piracy, it only hurts legitimate consumers.

IMO, the digital lock provisions in this bill are untenable. By allowing them, it erases the entire concept of property rights. If you sell me a product, you have no right whatsoever to tell me what to do with that product for my own purposes. Your only right is to stop me from profiting for your work.

At bare minimum, we need an amendment to this bill that delineates between commercial piracy and home use in a serious way. Breaking DRM to facilitate a massive counterfeiting scheme? Great idea for extra teeth to combat this kind of thing. Not allowing me to import a CD or DVD into iTunes? Really bad idea, creates criminals out of paying customers.

Likewise with the one copy rule. It's almost impossible to only ever make one copy of a digital media file for personal use, even if you try. Everything I buy gets imported into my iTunes library, then I decide how and where I'll watch or listen to the content from there. It could be on any of the 4 iPods we have in our house, it could be on a SD card, or on one of the two laptops, or on the iPad my wife's been taking about buying. Add to that, when you back-up your hard drive on your computer, you're making yet another copy. It's not that I would ever be using all of those at once, but even by only using a CD on one iPod, I've made three copies (iTunes, computer back-up, iPod).

Edited June 5, 2010 by Bryan

[bjre]

I think one nice royalty cheque would change your position on this issue 180 degrees.

That depend on the value of that cheque, if I had that royally cheque to create another better education system to make more kids smarter and knowledgeable, and to create another medical system to provide high quality service without waiting for hours for emergency and without waiting for months for other illness, and doctors can be dismissed after they make mistake that cause people die, and to reform the legislation system and abolish CAS, and educate those who did wrong instead of routinely send people to court according to the literature of the law items, help people more, inspired them, encourage them to live in a positive attitude instead of punish them like the current cops routinely do to those poor people, and to create institute to review all the legal system and study what is the better justice system that can make Canada a place that everyone happy except for those fat cats, (let them go to other countries to do their robberies). That would change my position on many issues 180 degrees.

[Bonam]

DRM:

http://xkcd.com/488/

[Battletoads]

I think one nice royalty cheque would change your position on this issue 180 degrees.

If I were a greedy person I suppose I might be tempted to screw over consumers for a cheap buck. That's all this bill is, a big fuck you to Canadian consumers, in favor of already incredibly profitable american companies.

[August1991]

If you buy a car, it is clear, you have the right to break any part of it to decorate your house.

If you buy a car, you don't have the right to drive it on a sidewalk. Property rights do not give you the right to do anything you want. Property law defines limits of ownership.

I think one of the coolest things about our society is the ability to make a living from one's intellectual property. I think we would all be poorer if that system were destroyed.

Bubbler, I would go further and say that your point makes ours a civilized society.

IMO, the digital lock provisions in this bill are untenable. By allowing them, it erases the entire concept of property rights. If you sell me a product, you have no right whatsoever to tell me what to do with that product for my own purposes. Your only right is to stop me from profiting for your work.

Bryan, you're wrong.

If I were a greedy person I suppose I might be tempted to screw over consumers for a cheap buck. That's all this bill is, a big fuck you to Canadian consumers, in favor of already incredibly profitable american companies.

That's the Michael Geist argument: "This Con copyright law is the greedy Americanization of Canada."

I am tired of The Toronto Star and the CBC referring to Michael Geist as an expert in Intellectual Property law. He's just a University of Ottawa law professor, and I would never recommend anyone to study at the U of O or in its law school.

Edited June 6, 2010 by August1991

[bush_cheney2004]

....That's the Michael Geist argument: "This Con copyright law is the greedy Americanization of Canada."

LOL! Very ironic considering "Americanization" by the media content they want to steal, devices and operating systems to render the content, and the very network on which to share the stolen goods (Internet).

[William Ashley]

My only comments are:

1. It was an international and national error fundamentally to create IP. While these are great for a capitalized society, much like private water, electric, gas, etc.. utilities, they do not serve the benefit to society to create one class for "educational - professional - allowable usages", and another for "commericial - general public - non allowable usages". I think that is fundamentally flawed. I think where the "real line" is, that is; it exists with monetazation of works and ideas housed to the creator rather than the person that can create productive commercial use. This not only stifles creation of "new products" that would incorporate those thoughts, but also limit the potentials of the future uses of an idea, simply because someone previously had it. In regard to the commercialization, this directly translates to public wants, and it is unfortunate when something as easily attainable as air is turned into a commodity that is illegal to share. While you can say AIR is a need not a want, life can be deconstructed to nothing but desire and will. Needs and wants are not differentiated in desire, and neither much have anything to do about will, other than fullfillment provides for it. Within a realistic context though a royalty system would have been a much better option to address unapproved usages. There is no reason for the government to support non essential products, and while the bill allows for much use, it appears to do nothing more than cater to decade old issues. Fines are still far to high, and there should be a clause which limits chargable offences to the fair market value of the pirated good, plus legal costs assosiated with any court struggle - eg. if they challenge the charges then they would be liable to pay legal fees in addition to fair market value.

The sad thing is - fair market value of most reproducable mediums is set only at the number of copies divided the total production cost after all other income from past or future derividives has been taken into account. An album that cost $150,000 to produce with 10,000 copies would only have a fair market value of $15, so a set fine should not exceed $15 - likewise if that album is being sold for 95 cents on a digital site that can make infinite number of albums then the values is not 95 cents it is approaching 0 cents or 1 cent if rounded up. Realistically though, if a copy isn't physically stolden it isn't a lost sale, especially if the person who copied it wasn't going to buy it anyway, and there is no lost sale, just one more listener. This was addressed by the "recordable medium surcharge" already. This ought to be the means of compensating the producers who are members of the specific production organizations that are earmarked the funds from that surcharge. The small IP owners not part of organizations remain of course, and they likely won't have the resources to really "fight for their rights" to be party to a cut via giving copyright notices via IP's they have tracked. The whole premise of them "sharing" their own works, then sueing the people they given them to is somewhat backward. Meanwhile hiring someone to do this is also somewhat of a form of entrapment. It is simply morally maligned and shouldn't be accepted in Canadian society. Once upon a time Artists were rakes and whores, pandering to the priveleged, they at times did well much like today. Cloging the courts with inane infringement suits ain't going to make the poor rich, it is going to waste tax payer dollars with court cases costing more than the fines they yeild = lost government revenue - that could have funded the arts.

None the less these things are because of a monetized society and people won't readily abandon that if they are the ones who are advantaged by it, which accounts probably for 80% of society.

To make a long story short - people will still pirate, so this act does nothing, and it is a waste of paper.

Legally of course though it indemnifies ISPS, the "providers" of transfer - aiding and abetting of the crime.

While doing this it also requires them to assist in providing the identity of the person who trades materials. While they act as the facilitator of the trade.

Provisions Respecting Providers of Network Services or Information Location Tools.

RE: tracking.

The problem here is that 1. Either someone would need to eavesdrop to get that information. 2. They would need to provide the data. 3. They would need to download the data. Meaning that one part of the exchange would be breaking the law to "find" the person breaching copyright. Also there is the issue of knowledge. Some people share data without even knowing the contents. This means pubs (ftp servers), file shares who download lots of stuff without knowing it. Since copyright notices are often not provided online and both artist supplied works, and commercial works are shared in the same manner it simply provides an unfair means of determination, unless the personal actually advertises what they are providing as "copyrighted and illegal", or there is a copyrighted work which is displayed as illegal but, anything made available online in a public access way should be assumed to be "available for free".

So this does not address the culture that exists online, and so is a failure in addressing copyright.

But it does present a codified form of the standard "notice to remove".

Much of this act is not really relivant.

Edited June 6, 2010 by William Ashley

[August1991]

To make a long story short - people will still pirate, so this act does nothing, and it is a waste of paper.

Wrong.

People bought plastic 45 rpm discs in the 1960s, because they couldn't pirate. And as a result, there was an explosion of creativity.

---

The same logic applies in the late 18th century, let's say 1780s, when Mozart composed.

Edited June 6, 2010 by August1991