Copyright bill to be tabled tomorrow
Industry Canada has announced that they will be tabling their draconian bill to amend the Copyright Act tomorrow morning. Recently Jim Prentice had been apparently parading around with the slogan of "Made in Canada Copyright Reform" being put forward, which conveniently supplants the previous spin of "Consumers Come First", regardless of the almost purely American corporate interests orchestrating this bill. The man's persistence on pushing this legislation forward with such a shamelessly misleading spin has become downright laughable at this point, but at the same time that may be the most unsettling aspect about it.
In preparing for the perpetual overwhelming backlash from a public that clearly isn't going to accept this legislation, the government has apparently requested that all MPs directly forward any letters or messages regarding copyright directly to the Industry Minister. This way, they can deliver the same homogenized response rather than those of individual representatives, suggesting that solidarity is going to be strictly enforced amongst the party on this bill. In other words, it's panic time.
The upcoming bill actively cut off any chance for modern technology to actually be embraced in a way that will allow the development of new business models or distribution methods. Canadians will be severely restricted to making any contributions to digital technology, and instead be expected to abide by the restrictions placed by American corporate interests. This bill will be castration before puberty, and Canada will be nothing more than a eunuch singing a tragic tune to its oppressive masters.
Update: The bill has been tabled, and it's probably even worse than we expected.
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Zannen, Canada webmaster.
I still think it's too early to panic. With it being tabled it means that the average consumer is about to discover that if they download something from YouTube that uses a copyrighted piece of music they're in violation of the law. The public won't stand for it. It's just a matter of whether they find out.
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Patrick McNamara
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I don't think we can count on that, but when the average person discovers they could get charged simply for downloading a YouTube video, there's going to be a fuss.
Having something in place isn't bad. What's bad is something in place that would hurt the average person. We don't need a bill that would scare people away from legitimate downloads. That would do more to hurt Canadian artist than help them.
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Patrick McNamara
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The bill needs three readings before it can be passed into law.
Also, you weren't being censored from viewing Michael Geist's blog. His traffic probably just saw a massive spike this morning.
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Zannen, Canada webmaster.
Do you even think it will make it to the 3rd reading before the house goes into break next week?
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Gundam Plus II. Forums open to Gundam and any other anime related talk
The bill would have to be voted on before it can be signed. It's unlikely that they would be read and voted on before the summer, especially since they have so many other bills to deal with. And I believe there would still be a debate.
I don't think they realize how much of a political kiss of death this bill is. Aside from cracking down on copyright violations, they're taking away personal liberties. That could be used against them in an election and one can be sure it will come back to haunt them. "The Tories want to turn your children into criminals!"
There was mention of the bill on CityTV news. They pointed out that it would make it illegal to keep recordings on a PVR for the purpose of building a library. They also brought up the problem with YouTube.
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Patrick McNamara
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There was mention of the bill on CityTV news. They pointed out that it would make it illegal to keep recordings on a PVR for the purpose of building a library. They also brought up the problem with YouTube.
I saw that story as well which was very interesting tidbit about it. Would that mean that Youtube would be blocked in Canada?
I also found it interesting that they also brought up that this bill would also cover software applications and games.
There's more info about it on the CityTv website here: http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_23740.aspx
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Gundam Plus II. Forums open to Gundam and any other anime related talk
Interestingly, non-liscenced anime, particularly fansubs, might just not be affected much by it. It's the copyright owner who would have to sue and that means dealing with the Japanese companies. And since they're unwilling to go after the fansubbers they would have little grounds to go after Canadian downloaders.
Liscenced anime would likely fall under the liscencee's control, but even at that they would have to prove the fansub violated their copyright. And again they would have to
The real tricky part of the bill is the uploading fine. There's a lot of programs that upload as well as download and it's possible for someone to argue the person has been uploading material just so they can throw a bunch of large lawsuits around hoping for out-of-court settlements just to make some quick cash, especially when the company is in trouble. It's not worthwhile for $500 but for a larger amount it is. There would have to be a limit as to the number of lawsuits they could file each year.
There's also a danger that ISPs could monitor useage and use that to sue for material they run on their TV distribution services. It seems the bill is designed with the idea of music in mind but has carelessly thrown everything else in without any regard for how it might be abused.
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Patrick McNamara
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There's a show on CP24 tonight at 9pm called Legal Briefs that will be dealing with this issue. I believe it's a call-in show.
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Patrick McNamara
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Did any of you guys get this e-mail too? I got it a few days after sending them an e-mail.
From: Ministers Prentice and VernerThe Government of Canada has introduced Bill C-61, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act. The proposed legislation is a made-in-Canada approach that balances the needs of Canadian consumers and copyright owners, promoting culture, innovation and competition in the digital age.
What does Bill C-61 mean to Canadians?
Specifically, it includes measures that would:
-expressly allow you to record TV shows for later viewing; copy legally purchased music onto other devices, such as MP3 players or cell phones; make back-up copies of legally purchased books, newspapers, videocassettes and photographs onto devices you own; and limit the "statutory damages" a court could award for all private use copyright infringements;
-implement new rights and protections for copyright holders, tailored to the Internet, to encourage participation in the online economy, as well as stronger legal remedies to address Internet piracy;
-clarify the roles and responsibilities of Internet Service Providers related to the copyright content flowing over their network facilities; and
-provide photographers with the same rights as other creators.
What Bill C-61 does not do:-it would not empower border agents to seize your iPod or laptop at border crossings, contrary to recent public speculation
What this Bill is not:-it is not a mirror image of U.S. copyright laws. Our Bill is made-in-Canada with different exceptions for educators, consumers and others and brings us into line with more than 60 countries including Japan, France, Germany and Australia
Bill C-61 was introduced in the Commons on June 12, 2008 by Industry Minister Jim Prentice and Heritage Minister Josée Verner.For more information, please visit the Copyright Reform Process website at www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/crp-prda.nsf/en/home
Thank you for sharing your views on this important matter.
The Honourable Jim Prentice, P.C., Q.C., M.P.
Minister of IndustryThe Honourable Josée Verner, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women
and Official Languages and Minister for
La Francophonie
There's a show on CP24 tonight at 9pm called Legal Briefs that will be dealing with this issue. I believe it's a call-in show.
I watched a bit of that. It wasn't that interesting nor was it there anything really new said from what I saw. The "Entertainment Lawyer" they had just spewed the usual stuff about how this bill will save the Canada music industry and all that nonsense.
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Gundam Plus II. Forums open to Gundam and any other anime related talk
It's worth noting that the lawyer they had on would stand to personally profit from the bill. It's likely the only person in all of Canada they could find in support of it.
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Patrick McNamara
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Has anyone read or heard anything new about this recently? It seems to be that after the day it was announced that it was going to be tabled that the topic seems to have vanished from most of the print and or television media.
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Gundam Plus II. Forums open to Gundam and any other anime related talk
The government said there weren't going to go to the next step in the legislative process until the fall, so there will be nothing new to talk about until then.
Of course, in the fall parliament will almost certainly be prorogued and/or an election called, and the legislation will be dead. If the Conservatives pass the law before the election, the entertainment industry won't have any more reason to give them campaign donations.
It would be political suicide to pass such a bill just before an election. I suspect what might be happening is that the bill was introduced to appease the US but they really have no intention of passing it knowing how much it would damage them. Still, just tabling such a bill could still hurt them in the next election.
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Patrick McNamara
Central Hub (Access to podcasts, stores and blog):
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