Bad News From Canada On NetTV And Media Levies 392
twilight30 writes "Canadian regulators ruled Friday that it is illegal to put broadcast TV signals onto the Internet without permission, dashing the hopes of entrepreneurs hoping to create new Net TV businesses.
An alternate link to the original at CNet is here."
And Dr Caleb writes "In response to this Slashdot story I emailed my Member of Parlament. He responded to me today to say that "Despite strong opposition by the Canadian Alliance to these and other aspects of the bill, the Minister of Canadian Heritage won the day and Bill C-32 Copyright Legislation is now law." And further to say "The law assumes guilt that everyone who buys a blank tape or CD is pirating music - but anyone who uses CDs for data storage, for instance, knows that's not true!"
Distressing that the bill has passed, but refreshing that my MP 'gets it'!"
TV Signals, but what about non-live? (Score:5, Interesting)
For me its much more usefull to find old shows online then live broadcasts. My TV bandwidth is much greater then my internet bandwidth, and I get better clearer pictures.
Instead, I'm more interested in legality of sharing old broadcasts. Some of the best shows (like "Probe") will never be shown again or offered in DVD. We recently threw away boxes of tapes of old "Fall Guy" episodes, and it would be great to watch "Barney Miller" again.
In the case of copyright, Eldred makes my favorite point. That copyrights sould be renewable but for an exponentially higher fee every year. That way the pomposness of the Disney's of the world that still make millions off of 70 year old charectars would not block out the rare but good old shows that have been abandoned.
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OnRoad [onlawn.net]: Tempering Detroit iron with our own hot air since, well, last week.
Not only Canada (Score:2, Interesting)
Most of the backup-related companies heavily based on CD-R media either moved to belgium or switzerland (or anywhere else) or simply got out of business.
Maybe that's some crazy stuff related to french speaking people
Re:makes sense to me. (Score:5, Interesting)
Up until today, as long as you didn't modify it (like trimming out commercials), it would be perfectly legal to retransmit a broadcast signal. The whole point of broadcast is that it's freely put out over the public airwaves for anyone who wants to view it.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:Those media levies (Score:3, Interesting)
It could be though, that they realize that an increased levy would mean less people buying CD-R's, MP3 players etc....
As a Canadian... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml [neil.eton.ca]
Basically, since I'm paying the levy, and guilt is assumed (and the penalty for such guilt is the fee incurred by the levy), I can't be charged for being "more guilty" so I'm allowed to copy music that I have not licensed (bought), in some circumstances.
S
Ignorant Leaders (Score:3, Interesting)
-Typhon
Ouch! (Score:2, Interesting)
So you get a 20 gig iPod, thats 440$ bucks on top of the price of the unit.
Yowza.
Re:Impied Purchase (Score:5, Interesting)
There are couple of small wrinkles. You are allowed to copy an original sound recording on to levied media for your own use. You are NOT allowed to copy the recording and give it to a friend - that would be distribution.
But - there is no restriction on HOW you get the original recording. Any legal method should be allowable. You can...
* borrow from a friend
* borrow from a library
* buy, copy, and return to the merchant
The last one only works if the merchant allows returns. HMV stopped allowing returns because this was getting to be too common. However, to HMV's credit, in all the announcements and press releases and interviews at the time, nowhere did HMV state that what the customers were doing was illegal - which is good, because it wasn't illegal.
Re:makes sense to me. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm afraid you've missed my point.
I was speaking strictly of re-broadcasting pre-assembled signals. Vis; the major networks pay for casting, crew, locations, scripts (writers), makeup, wardrobe, lighting, equipment, and broadcast. Afterwards, I take this signal and, using comodity hardware/software combination I encode it and re-transmit the signal.
That has the effect of stealing their work without any due compensation. Even in the case where someone might re-broadcast with the comercials intact, this isn't a valid form of compensation. Sponsors don't pay to merely have their comercial shown; they pay for a timeslot in a particular broadcast at a particular date and time, aimed towards a specific demographic. Re-broadcasting a primetime show's commercials at three o'clock in the morning to a global audience may benefeit the sponsors, but it doesn't benefeit the network.
This has nothing to do with due dilligence and everything to do with people overstepping their bounds. Much as television content isn't terribly stellar nowadays, I'd hate to see networks remove the ability for people to receive that content without a subscription system.
Re:Legal advice needed (Score:2, Interesting)
See http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml for details, if you're Canadian. It basically boils down to the fact that you can make copies of recordings for yourself, even if you don't own the original. The copy has to be for 'personal use,' so you can't give it to a friend, but you can lend that friend your CD, your computer, and a blank CD and let them go nuts.
Re:Blame Canada! (Score:2, Interesting)
He must be one of those people too stoned to realize it wasn't a total victory. This is straying from the topic, but here's what's going on.
Canada is decriminalizing weed. We are not legalizing weed. There is a quantity you may posess (I can't recall, but heard it compared to a couple of packs of cigarettes worth) where it is not criminal - but it is still illegal!
You won't get a criminal record. But you will be fined (and should you neglect to pay, you must appear in court). Basically the same as any other non-criminal fines (speeding tickets for example).
Don't be mistaken. This is not a step towards legalizing weed in Canada - quite the opposite in fact. Here's the reason they are doing it:
Cop's are ignoring and not arresting or pressing ciminal charges on people who posess small quantities of weed. A big study was done and it showed they do this because it has such long-lasting effects (criminal record) and such harsh punishment (potential jail time). Basically the cops think these small poseesors are not a threat to society or don't deserve such a harsh punishment.
The decriminalization plan is coming to light so that cops will do their jobs - comphiscate the weed and fine the offender. Now they can do it without the guilt of having 'ruined a life' over something so 'harmless'.
It is still illegal to possess weed in Canada - just now you are MORE likely to get in trouble for it (read: as opposed to overlooking it, they'll write you a ticket).
Re:Blame Canada! (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is the story (you do the math):
Ontario's highest court smashes pot prohibition
(10 Jan, 2003)
Canadian government gets 6 months to change law or else! (they already had two and a half years!)
Prohibition in Canada teeters on the brink as court case after court case tips it further toward its ignominious end.
On January 9, Ontario's highest court, the Court of Appeal ruled that Canada's Medical Marijuana Access Regulations (MMAR) are unconstitutional, because the difficulty that legal medpot users have in getting a legal supply of cannabis - many of whom are forced to look on the streets. The case was shepherded by lawyer Alan Young and argued by lawyer Leora Shemesh on behalf of nine medical cannabis users and one compassion club founder, Warren Hitzig. In the case, Shemesh and Young asked the court to address several issues including the Ministry of Health's decision to withhold pot grown by the government at their facility in Flin Flon, Manitoba (CC#38, Health Canada claims their pot sucks).
"Ultimately the lack of a lawful source led the court to strike down the MMAR with a 6 months grace period to fix the problem," Young told Cannabis Culture.
If the government fails to meet the 6 months deadline, the judge promised to flush marijuana from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), the law which makes all marijuana possession, trafficking and cultivation illegal. The judge suggested that the government might want to take a look at letting compassion clubs operate with the full consent of the law.
"I think the government will choose to let the law die" said Young. "There may only be 800 exemptees right now, but if the government starts distributing, they will eventually have to distribute for tens of thousands of medical users, and they don't want to be in that position. It will be a major enterprise. It will cost them more money to maintain prohibition."
If you close your eyes while someone reads you the January 9 ruling, you might have a flashback to the Parker case of July 2000 (CC#30, One year to change the law), when the courts told the government to change medpot access rules in 12 months under threat of flushing the CDSA. The spirit of the decision was that the government was supposed to make the laws clearer, giving the Minister of Health less discretion to grant exemptions in what seemed a whimsical, nonsensical fashion. Before the Parker ruling, medpot patients faced seemingly absurd, helter-skelter decisions from the Ministry of Health regarding who would get an exemption and who wouldn't. Two people with the exact same condition could get entirely different decisions, and only a small handful of Canadians received an exemption at all.
12 months later, in July 2001, a seemingly vengeful Canadian government made medpot rules even harder for medpot users, including provisions that put doctors at risk of losing their licenses for prescribing, forcing many patients to find two specialists and a GP to prescribe them marijuana as part of the application process, and still only a small number of people received exemptions, while those who already had exemptions found the annual renewal process suddenly impossible. How will the government react now? Will it use the court decision to put medpot users further out of luck?
One thing's for sure: the political environment is more ripe for change than it has ever been. On January 2, a provincial court judge in Ontario ruled that Section 4 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which relates to possession, was invalid (CC Online, Judge tosses Canadian pot law) when lawyer Brian McAllister argued that the government was supposed to change the law in July 2001, but instead only wrote regulations, a subtle difference that nonetheless has profound implications. Laws must pass through parliament, may face committee hearings, and are not subject to change at a whim, McAllister explained. Regulations, on the other hand, are concocted by Canada's cabinet, and can be changed by a simple publication of the Canada Gazette. McAllister's case was appealed by the prosecution on January 3 (CC Online, Prosecution appeals landmark case), but the appeal means that issue is still undecided, and may become precedent setting.
It all comes down to a time crunch for politicians who now must change the medpot rules in 6 months. Should they change the regulations and face the possibility that McAllister's case will succeed? Or should they navigate the lengthy parliamentary process sometimes necessary for legislative reform, risking the 6-months deadline?
Meanwhile, other court cases are in the wings, waiting to clobber prohibition. The case of Caine, Clay and Malmo Levine, represented partly by lawyer John Conroy and partly by Malmo Levine himself, argues that recreational use and trafficking are protected by the constitution, and is potent enough to make pot prosecutors around the country shake in their boots. The Caine, Clay and Malmo Levine case was delayed late in 2002 because Minister of Justice Cauchon announced that Canada would decriminalize within a few months, and the court wanted to await the outcome (CC Online, Canadian justice delayed). The case will now almost certainly resurface since Prime Minister Chretien cuffed Cauchon with the announcement that decriminalization isn't yet a fate accompli.
Another promising decision came on January 8, when Lawyer Rick Reimer was found innocent of driving while intoxicated. Reimer - who holds a medical marijuana exemption - was pulled over by cops while he puffed a joint in January of last year (CC#40, Driving high). Instead of putting it out, he kept smoking, even as he rolled down his window to face an astonished officer. Reimer argued that there was no way to say if he was impaired, as studies have yet to be done to determine how much a person can consume before they are intoxicated, and because everyone has a different tolerance level.
The courts are sending a clear message to Canadian politicians - "change the destructive prohibition laws, show some compassion to medical users, or face the consequences." There is also a hidden message - the courts are ready to strike down all marijuana laws, and chances are that judges are sick and tired of sentencing people to jail for a harmless, green, happiness-inducing and medicinal herb.
Re:makes sense to me. (Score:2, Interesting)
Some thoughts (Score:2, Interesting)
Why don't Apple and Creative among others help join in the fight? Apple, for example, could sell an iPOD w/o a hard drive. The media player now would not include the hard drive. Then they could sell separately a similar hard drive for data storage which would happen to work w/ the iPOD.
Complain to your MPPs. Boycott companies which belong to the RIAA. Buy music only from used record stores. Import you own CD-Rs.
The money collected from the levy's for over three years now has yet to be distributed to artist. To date some $20 Million has been collected. If the purpose of the levys is to compensate artists, where is the money going to go?
Re:makes sense to me. (Score:2, Interesting)
What's the issue ... someone puts a signal
into the "air" for anyone to pick up, and
someone else amplifies it. The amplifier happens
to be the Internet. *Copy*right is for protecting
copying; extending the range of a broadcast is
not copying. Indeed, extending the broadcast of
content laden with commercials is a good thing
for the original broadcaster.
I'll answer my owner rhetoric ... the issue is the same one
that motivates region encoding in DVDs. Which
is that content providers do not want a free
and competitive market for content, and instead
want to balkanize the market into little fiefdoms
so as to artificially raise the costs. The value
of watching the Toronto Maple Leafs on TV to someone in Toronto is likely less than
the value to an ex-Toronto resident watching
that same game from his new home in Vancouver.
However, the purpose of communications
technology is to remove distance as an inhibitor
to enjoying life. The costs of the Vancouverite
for watching the Toronto hockey game should be
in proportion to the cost of retransmitting the
signals thousands of miles away. Instead, the
government has effectively levied a trade
tariff on the content receiver in Vancouver.
Trade tariffs create market distortions and inhibit growth (re: The Great Depression).
This is a slippery slope. Someday it will be illegal to sell or purchase antennae that allow one to pick up TV and AM/FM signals from more than 100 miles away. Let's say someone invents a TV receiver that lets someone in LA pickup TV signals from Chicago. So now a transplanted Chicagoan doesn't need NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV to watch the Bears. Any predictions on whether the broadcasting industry will sue?
But maybe you think it is wrong to receive long distance weak transmissions? I'm sure then, when you manage to pickup an AM radio station from 500 miles away, you quickly change stations, because to fo otherwise, wouldn't be "right".