Canada's New DMCA Considered Worst Copyright Law

loconet writes "The government of Canada is preparing to attempt to bring a new DMCA-modeled copyright law in Canada in order to comply with the WIPO treaties the country signed in 1997. (These treaties were also the base of the American DMCA.) The new Canadian law will be even more restrictive in nature than the American version and worse than the last Canadian copyright proposal, the defeated Bill C-60. Among the many restrictive clauses in this new law, as Michael Geist explains, is the total abolishment of the concept of fair use: 'No parody exception. No time shifting exception. No device shifting exception. No expanded backup provision. Nothing.' Geist provides a list of 30 things that can be done to address the issues."

Not news

[Anonymous Coward]

This is hardly surprising. The current Canadian government is more interested in mirroring American political issues than doing the bidding of it's own people.
Most of us here are embarrassed. Sorry, we'll vote better next time.

Geist's list of 30 things

[morgan_greywolf]

Geist's list of 30 things you can do [michaelgeist.ca], linked to in TFS, is pretty good, actually, no matter where you live. Even if your country already has a DMCA-like law, you can still fight for it or certain provisions of it to be repealed. Just replace the Canadian-sepcific info with the equivalents in your country.

Furthermore, some of it just plain good advice -- only buy DRM-free music and videos, release stuff under the Creative Commons licenses. And so forth.

Most of you are gonna be like, yeah, yeah, but no one cares. That's not true anymore. Now that the MAFIAA have become a nuisance and even public enemy #1 as far as some are concerned, the public will push for change. Like it or not, most politicians eventually cave to public opinion. After all, they need the public's support in order to get elected.

Contact Your MP

[whisper_jeff]

If you are Canadian, I encourage you to contact your member of parliament [parl.gc.ca] and make sure they know you, as a voter, want them to put the concerns of Canadian consumers before big business (especially foreign big business).

Re:Not news

[MrAndrews]

Actually, it's not so much American politics as it is the will of American corporations... the government apparently got the entire text of the bill from the MPAA [pttbt.ca]...

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a non-issue. The bill will never pass.

The US complains about Canada's IP laws all the time. So every so often we introduce a new bill so we can point and say "see US, we're trying!". However the bill is purposely written to be so restrictive as to never, ever make it through 3 readings in the House of Commons. A bit wasteful, sure, but for the most part it keeps the americans off our backs.

Re:Unlikely

[Bullfish]

Of course the moment that Hans Schrieber connected Harper to Lyin' Brian Mulrooney the party dropped eight points back in the polls to be tied with the liberals again... I sincerely doubt that this legislation will be given high priority

Re:Relationship w/ Government

[computerchimp]

That Geist guy rules. Here is a link on what you are referring to:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2251/125/ [michaelgeist.ca]

CC

Fair use in Canada

[IPCanuck]

A little background may shed some light on Prof. Geist's comments. Canada has no 'fair use' law - we have 'fair dealing' which is more restrictive to users. While American copyright law describes what rights copyright owners have, and everything else is open to users, Canadian copyright law describes what narrow rights copyright users have, and everything else is restricted.

When Prof. Geist talks about time- and format-shifting, parody, and backup exceptions, these are not exceptions to copyright that are being taken away from Canadians. These are rights that, technically, we've never had. Unlike the US, which had the famous Sony/Betamax case which legalized VCRs, we have never had that debate, and consumers would likely lose if we did. VCRs and PVRs (DVRs) are in a legal grey area at best, if not outright illegal, and yet they are in virtually every home.

This leads to Canada lagging behind with adoption of newer technologies, due to the legally questionable situation manufacturers might find themselves in. TiVo just announced their entry into the Canadian market (officially) this month. How can our government move to reform copyright, and in the process make criminals of virtually everyone? How do we get out of our current contradictory mess of copyright law in Canada, through which downloading of copyrighted material from the internet is legal, and yet VCRs are not?

This bill has not yet been introduced, so we cannot even read it for ourselves to confirm or deny these rumours. That said, I urge every Canadian reading this post to write (snail-mail is best!) their MP post haste and let them know that they don't want to become a criminal every time they transfer songs from their CDs to their iPod, or use their PVR/DVR or VCR. No postage necessary. You can find your MP here: http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E/ [parl.gc.ca]

Hon. Josée Verner and Hon. Jim Prentice are the ministers in charge of the copyright file. Write them too!

Re:Wait a minute...

[PFAK]

This bill will pass; The Conservatives, Liberals and Bloc support it, the only party really opposed to this bill is the NDP.

Please, write your MP. I have compiled a list of good arguments you can use when writing them [lovethisgame.net].

Re:Contact Your MP

[I'm_Original]

There's a summary of the proposal here: http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/crp-prda.nsf/en/rp01142e.html [ic.gc.ca]

Give me your Crystal Ball when you're done with it

[gordguide]

WHAT new law?

This hasn't even been tabled yet. There is a minority government in power; the opposition can shoot down anything it wants and there's nothing the government can do about it. It hasn't got to second reading, it hasn't got to the Senate, it's pure speculation at worst and in need of some rather improbable help at best. Most of the bills this government tabled in the last session (a year ago) died on the order paper (means nothing happened and can ever happen with them).

Sorry, I'm calling you on this.

BULLSHIT

Re:Wait a minute...

[Scruffy Dan]

not to mention that the liberals have proposed similar bad copyright laws in the past.

The Conservative's Copyright Policy

[Munchkinguy]

I just wanted to point out the Conservative Party's official policy on Copyright Law (from http://www.conservative.ca/EN/2692/41625 [conservative.ca])

Copyright Legislation i) The Conservative Party believes that the objectives of copyright legislation should be: a) to create opportunities for Canadian creators to enjoy the fruits of their labour to the greatest possible extent; b) to ensure that the rights of Canadian creators are adequately protected by law; c) that these rights are balanced with the opportunity for the public to use copyrighted works for teaching, researching and lifelong learning; d) to continue to allow an individual to make copies of sound recordings of musical works for that person's personal and individual use; and e) that enforcement is applied fairly and in accordance with international standards. ii) The Conservative Party believes that reasonable access to copyright works is a critical necessity for learning and teaching for Canadian students and teachers, and that access to copyrighted materials enriches life long learning and is an essential component of an innovative economy. iii) A Conservative Government will give consideration to educational public policy goals within the copyright framework. A Conservative Government will work with industry to increase awareness and develop a public education campaign to better inform users and creators on the copyright laws in Canada. iv) A Conservative Government will eliminate the levy on blank recording materials.