Canadian Copyright Reform Takes Effect

An anonymous reader writes "This morning, the majority of Bill C-11, Canada's copyright reform bill, took effect, marking the most significant changes to Canadian copyright law in decades. Michael Geist summarizes the changes, which include expanded fair dealing, new protection for creators of user generated content, consumer exceptions such as time shifting, format shifting, and backup copies, and a cap on liability for non-commercial infringement."

Re:NOW I'm moving to Canada

[Nerdfest]

Well, it is now illegal to break digital locks on a product we bought, even for non-infringing purposes. You may want to stay where you are. That is really the worst part of it, but it's pretty bad.

Re:What is

[mcgrew]

What is a "creator of user generated content"?

You. Your comment is user-generated content, and you are its creator.

Re:Some good, but adds restrictive digital lock ru

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. This is not the case. Every single concession given to consumers are provided the absence of digital locks. In other words as soon as a digital lock is applied, every single consumer right goes out the window.

And so yes, Canadians have been fucked over royally by their government (which was just a proxy for the US government) in favour of the copyright lobbies.

And all of this despite the fact that the government ran (a charade of) a "consultation" across the whole country with Canadians asking what they wanted, and even though Canadians told them overwhelming that they did not want a DMCA, that is exactly what they have shoved up the asses of every single Canadian.

And as far as it being a DMCA, it's even worse than the US "model" where at least that model allows for a review every few years of new exceptions that should be made to the digital locks provisions. Canadians get no such reviews and will live with these digital lock rules forever.

Re:Over all, this was good.

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly do not understand the bill.

You CANNOT copy DVDs, despite paying to be able to on blank media. They are protected by a digital lock and digital locks trump *every* other right you have. You CANNOT format shift when a digital lock is applied. Wanna hold your breath on waiting for digital locks to be applied preventing you from doing that? You can. I guarantee you will not suffocate.

Re:Some good, but adds restrictive digital lock ru

[Sloppy]

And even if you own handbrake + a lot of other ripping tools, that in itself is not a crime and it couldn't be used for getting a warrant.

It looks like you're right that it's not a crime to have that software, but it looks to me like 41.1(c) makes it a crime to create those tools or provide them. Also, you might be "import"ing the software (a new crime per this law) when you download/update it.

Interestingly, this law has the same weirdness as US' DMCA: it defines circumvention in terms of doing something without the authority of the copyright owner. But for tools, there never is any specific copyright owner. That creates a two-pronged weakness (just like DCMA) in that

1. DRM cracking can become legal if enough copyright owners who use that DRM, say they're ok with it, or
2. Mainstream tools (e.g. Sony's DVD player) may be violators if some copyright owner says they're not ok with it.

So this law is theoretically solvable the same way as DMCA: everyone, go make a movie, and publish it on CSS-protected DVD. Then sew chaos.