Kill it with fire.

"Insightful"?! Slashdot moderation terrifies me sometimes.

Canadians probably saw the DMCA laws in the US, and thought "Pfff, we can do better than that!".

Note to Canadians: It's NOT a good idea to try to beat the US on everything!

Given the historical trends to avoid such laws up here, it will (hopefully) not get passed and enacted. Why? Several reasons: 1) Local providers for various media and services will not tolerate losing clients (to an extent) in an already limited market in Canada. With about 30-35 million people, there isn't much to keep on top of as it is. 2) The nature of Canadian laws and somewhat common sense. Seeing as this law would appear to leave no greater benefit for Canadian people (unless certain politicians were paid off) especially if several reports or inquiries were/are being made to validate the cries of murder that US-based groups have been making over copyright issues. 3) Obvious attempt to vent on another country than their own. They hate the fact our copyright laws are more "loose", or as I put it, realistic. We may be economically tied to the US, but there's no need to follow political and overbearing social suit in this case. While officially if/when this proposal is shot down, more politically correct rhetoric will be used to indicate their disapproval in getting this flustered over something that isn't as bad as it is made out to be. 4) Lack of financial benefit in precedence. If #2 holds, then data will more than likely be found in that such attempts to sue or garnish apparent "violators" of copyright will yield in next to nothing. Either the charge was bogus or exaggerated, the person won't be able to pay and/or it'll be thrown out of court locally. Precedence has shown this. So, it won't fly here, most likely. It's possible I'll grant that, but it'll likely get quashed.

The parliament can vote whatever-the-law they want, but they still have to apply it. And the RCMP (our equivalent of the US FBI) explicitly said that they won't go after any individual for copyright infringement...

So what's the use of a law if you're not to enforce it?

So what's the use of a law if you're not to enforce it?

Selective enforcement.

They only enforce it when you need leverage over someone. And since practically everyone will be a rampant violator, whenever the government wants to shut somebody up, or suspect them of rape, murder, vandalism or whatever and can't prove it, they'll just charge them with 4000 counts of violation of this law, and threaten them with a billion dollar penalty.

when we have nowhere to run to our only hope now is revolution.

Actually, it's not so much American politics as it is the will of American corporations

American politics is the will of American corporations nowadays. It was US corporations which pressured the US government to strong arm everyone in the WIPO to adopt these rules.

The *AA's managed to influence the laws in many countries by influencing American politicians to serve their own purposes. We all lose.

Now that they have made almost everyone else adopt these laws, they've started to lobby the government to harmonize US laws with everyone else. So, they managed to get everyone else's laws updated so they could then get domestic laws updated.

How messed up is that?

Cheers

I'm not so optimistic. Recent polls I've seen show the Tories at a near-majority. The NDP and Liberals have already caved on a couple of bills they were mostly against because defeating it could have led to an election. Could happen with this one. If they do defeat a bill that's treated as a no-confidence vote it's likely that the public will blame the Libs for forcing yet another election and the Tories will come out further ahead. All in all, I don't think the Tories are afraid of a vote of no confidence.

No, and you just demonstrated how little you know about the Canadian political scene. Perhaps you should read a bit more.

It's about implementing poor laws like America has done with the DMCA, and _because_ America has done so. Canada's _current_ government feels it is more important to follow suit than to listen to its people.

Canada's IP laws work just fine right now, thanks very much. Changing them would benefit corporations, not citizens.

Until the actual bill is posted somewhere where it can be read, there is no point in doing anything. Hell, I haven't even seen a number that's been assigned to this bill.

My MP has responded in a timely manner to even emails that I've sent him about my opposition to specific pieces of legislation. I will wait until it is actually tabled before I start doing anything. Right now, it's just FUD. "A possible bill that may be proposed might have horrible consequences for the state of copyright in Canada."

Yes, this is largely about complying with international treaties which Canada has already agreed to. So, to a large extent, the complaint is that said treaties should never have been signed in the first place. The WIPO provisions for DMCA-like legislation greatly over-reaches. So, even though this treaty has been signed, it should not be followed. Signatories should "do the right thing" and repeal their support for said treaties. (Wishful thinking, I know.) Just because a treaty has been signed does not, of course, make it proper and correct.

Well, actually Michael Geist explains [michaelgeist.ca] the situation as:

The new Canadian legislation will likely mirror the DMCA with strong anti-circumvention legislation - far beyond what is needed to comply with the WIPO Internet treaties - and address none of the issues that concern millions of Canadians. The Conservatives promise to eliminate the private copying levy will likely be abandoned. There will be no flexible fair dealing. No parody exception. No time shifting exception. No device shifting exception. No expanded backup provision. Nothing.

(Emphasis added.)

In fact, there is a concern that while legislation is being proposed to conform to treaties, the opportunity will be seized to extend the laws beyond what is strictly required. In particular, it was found [michaelgeist.ca] that some members of Canadian government are being influenced (financially, etc.) by U.S. lobbies. So, there is a real danger that overly restrictive laws get put in place in order to appease U.S. corporations (or the U.S. government, depending on how you want to look at it).

It's not as simple as saying that Canada must comply with the treaties it has signed. As you say, the law can be implemented in various ways, and we must all do our best to insure that they are implemented in sane, democratic, and freedom-preserving ways. (Which may mean not implementing them at all.)

Meh, it's time for an election. It looks like the conservatives are just as dirty as the liberals, but the liberals have had their spanking.

Just tell everybody during the campaign that the conservatives want to make it illegal to put your CDs on your iPod, so go vote.

This bill has been a long time coming, and the priorities of the current government are well-established. It isn't the first time we've been down this road (Bill C-60). New anti-camcording legislation was adopted at warp speed earlier this year, despite questions about the necessity. Copyright reform was specifically mentioned in the Speech from the Throne earlier this year. Plus rumours are a-plenty on this from sources all around Ottawa, not just Prof. Geist.

Boing Boing, Excess Copyright, Centre for Intellectual Property Policy, Digital Copyright Canada, ... - all in agreement that this is the likely direction the government will take, and that the effects will be disastrous for user rights. This will be nothing short of a complete sell-out to American special interest groups (RIAA, Hollywood, MPAA...)

On the one hand I don't think it'll fly in it's most draconian form - we'll probably end up with a somewhat watered down version.

On the other hand though, my Usenet connection is likely to be humming along 24/7 for the next couple of months.

How is this a troll? You mods need a sense of humor!!

I don't know who you are Anonymouse Coward, or whether you know anything about Canadian politics, but I think you're dead wrong here.

This isn't garbage legislation, the kind of legislation that will never pass but is introduced to make their voting base happy. This legislation is important to the rich CRIA lobbyists and the Conservatives want to reward them for their support. The Conservatives mentioned these new laws in their Throne Speech, so it's definately important to them.

The Conservatives would never introduce something if they thought it was going to fail, simply because they couldn't stand the loss of face. Furthermore, it won't fail, since the Liberals aren't going to fight over an issue that won't garner them much votes. If the Liberals do fight, the Conservatives will make the bill another confidence motion and force an election, which the Liberals will lose.

As described in Geist's post, the bill would outlaw VCRs.

After sitting through another insulting pre-movie commercial, nothing would surprise me anymore:

Image of a prison security camera monitoring an imate pacing his cell. Commentary (paraphrased): "he camcordered a movie, now the justice system gets to camcorder him for 10 years".

That is now actual law. With rather scary commercials to back this up. People can seriously be put in PRISON for 10 years, for recording a movie. And the rest of us get to be called potential criminals after we've just paid our $15.

And you think we're being alarmist and melodramatic? How extreme do these measures have to get? The fact that this is even being discussed outside the confines of a dystopian sci-fi novel should make you seriously afraid.

Now it's basically the 51st state since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister (or "Steve" as GWB calls him). Too bad.

[Shakes Fist]DAMN THOSE NEOCONS!

Oh, right...the world isn't quite so simple is it?

There are a couple of rather significant flaws with your naive, juvenile view of Canadian politics-

a) The Conservative government is a minority government. Legislation doesn't pass unless it passes with a majority, which the conservatives cannot accomplish themselves.

b) Stringent, DCMA-style copyright regulations have been in the works for years -- yeah, back in the Liberal era. You can bet the Liberals will support this, because they basically authored it.

The next time your knee starts jerking to blame everything you perceive as negative on Stephen Harper, try to get some semblance of facts.

The Parliament posts its order of business .. here:

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Pub=status&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=2 [parl.gc.ca]

This supposed "Super-DMCA" is nowhere on the list of house or private members bills.
The government never gets through its order of business anyways, so if this thing is supposed
to get tacked onto the end of the list at some future date, it's unlikely to even
get a reading during this session of parliament.

Sure smells like fear-mongering, rather than anything serious..