Beware the Canadian DMCA
I hope that Canadians all across their great country speak out on this!
Please don’t let your government do to your Citizens what our government has allowed the entertainment cartels to do to us (US Citizens) — using our own laws against it’s Citizens to the tune of 20,000+ lawsuits against its own individual Citizens and more! Backed by our own government agencies which are funded by our own tax dollars.
Don’t let them turn your fair use rights into nothingness as they did here.
Please read about what’s coming up literally around the corner for you in Canada and don’t let it happen to you!
Here are some places to start:
Why am I opposed to the upcoming Copyright bill even before I have seen it? (Digital Copyright Canada). Here is just a snippet from the article:
It has been interesting to watch the membership of the Fair Copyright for Canada facebook group grow, as well as the questions to the Minister of Industry posted to the website for CBC’s Search Engine. There is an obvious question that people ask, which is why we are opposed to a Copyright bill that hasn’t even been tabled yet, and that anyone who has seen it is unable to talk about until it is tabled.
For me it comes down to a statement made to me by staff of Honourable Josée Verner, the current Heritage Minister.
The Government of Canada, led by the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages, is working toward bringing Canadian copyright policy into conformity with the World Intellectual Property Organization Internet Treaties.
I don’t need to see the act to know that it will be harmful to the interests of most creators and other Canadians. The speculation is really a matter of whether the bill will be bad or worse, not whether it can be good.
Much more in the article.
Copyright debate finds no shortage of missionary zeal (Deirdre Mcmurdy, The Ottawa Citizen):
With controversial copyright reform legislation expected as early as this week, it might be worth remembering that bitter, bloody fights have been an integral part of this deeply divisive issue since at least the sixth century.
According to historical accounts, in 561, as many as 2,000 soldiers lost their lives in the battle of Cul Dreimhne, which ensued because of a violent disagreement between St. Finnian of Moville and St. Columba of Iona over St. Columba’s copying of a psalter that belonged to St. Finnian.
When St. Columba was caught and refused to surrender his copy of the manuscript, an enraged St. Finnian took him before the High King of Ireland. St. Columba narrowly escaped death and was exiled to Scotland as a missionary.
While it’s not likely that opponents of the imminent bill will lay siege to Parliament Hill or have anyone exiled, there’s no shortage of missionary zeal swirling around this issue. And if, as expected, it reflects the influence of the powerful American entertainment lobby, there will certainly be backlash if not bloodshed.
That’s principally because copyright is a major point of intersection between culture and money — both of which tend to ignite rather strong feelings and opinions.
More in the article.
Way back in the day when Cyndi Lauper sang that “money changes everything,” she wasn’t referring to the reform of Canada’s copyright legislation.
But she could have been.
Just as the recent announcement of the terms of the highly-technical spectrum bandwidth auction have a direct bearing on the price consumers pay for mobile telephone and messaging services – and their ability to use the latest technology – changes to copyright law have an equally direct impact on almost every aspect of entertainment we consume
And if, as is generally expected, the new rules reflect the acute pressure to mirror the U.S. model, there’s going to be an awful lot of howling ahead.
That’s because tougher rules could, in a digital age, significantly drive up the cost of downloading and broadcasting music, printing an article from the internet, or going to the movies. Not to mention the cost of your iPod or MP3 player.
More in the article.
Canadian DMCA introduced (Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing):
Deb sez, “Dr. Michael Geist has just blogged that the proposed legislation is on the Notice Paper for the Canadian Parliament for next week. This is a necessary step for any legislation presented to the Parliament. This means it is going ahead. Now is the time to SPEAK UP if you don’t want this restrictive, horrible American-style DMCA in Canada. Please, contact your M.P. via email.”
Better yet, participate in tomorrow’s coordinated campaign to reach out to the elusive Industry Minister Jim Prentice, who is responsible for this legislation. This is especially important if you live in Calgary: we need people who care about this issue to attend the Minister’s open house and ask him some of the 250+ questions that CBC listeners have for him, which he has so far refused to address. Link (Thanks, Deb!)
Quite a few more links from the Boing Boing article at the bottom as well. Don’t forget the comment section where you will find Deb Johnson’s comment with the following Michael Geist’s blog links:
I’m Deb Johnson that’s been posting on Michael Geist’s blog. I’ve gone through the archives of his blog and come up with these 4 blog posts of his that will help explain how we know what is contained within the forthcoming bill.
10 Questions to ask of Minister Prentice
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2435/125/The Canadian DMCA – what can you do?
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2431/125/Details begin to emerge on Forthcoming Copyright Bill
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2321/125/Here comes the DMCA
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2295/125/Hope this helps explain the worry, and panic, a bit better
HOWTO Fight Canada’s coming DMCA copyright law (Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing):
Canadian copyfightin’ law prof Michael Geist has revisited his list of “30 things you can do to stop the Canadian DMCA” — first posted the last time the Canadian government tried to bring down a US-style copyright law. The US’s approach to enforcing copyright in the digital age has resulted in 20,000 lawsuits against music fans, technology companies being sued out of existence for making new multi-purpose tools, and has not put one penny into the pocket of an artist or reduced downloading one bit. The USA stepped into uncharted territory in 1998 with the DMCA and fell off a cliff — that was reckless, but following them off the cliff is insane.
The Canadian minority Tory government is planning to do just that, first thing in the New Year, with a full-court press for a Canadian DMCA that goes way beyond the US counterpart, making it one of the worst copyright laws in the developed world, with extra-strong anti-circumvention rules that prohibit making and using tools that open up locked digital files, even when those files belong to you.
The last two Canadian Members of Parliament who championed a Canadian DMCA lost their jobs. Good things come in threes.
# Write to your local Member of Parliament. Nothing is more obvious or more important. Letters (which are better than email) from just a handful of constituents is enough to get the attention of your local MP. It is often a good idea to ask the MP to forward your letter to the relevant Ministers. Contact information for all MPs is available here. Online Rights Canada also provides an easy way to write to your local MP.
# Write to the Prime Minister of Canada. Contact information here.
# Write to Jim Prentice, the Minister of Industry. Minister Prentice is responsible for the Copyright Act in Canada. Despite the fact that Minister Prentice trumpeted his pro-consumer approach on the spectrum auction issue, the rumour mill suggests that he supports DMCA-style reforms and has little interest in advocating for consumer concerns. Minister Prentice’s contact information is here.
# Write to Josee Verner, the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Minister Verner is one of the two ministers responsible for copyright policy in Canada. Prior Canadian Heritage Ministers have been perceived to be close to U.S. copyright lobby groups and copyright collectives. Ministry contact information here. Minister Verner’s contact information is here….
Link (Thanks, Ryan!)
Waiting to speak out or just letting it happen will commit Canadians to the same or worse stripping of your Fair Use Rights than has happened here in the United States. Show you are smarter than we are, please!
Please don’t let this happen in Canada. Believe me, you will live to regret it. We Citizens of the United States can guarantee it — from experience — since we have been living with this since 1998. And look at what has happened here — how each year the unintended consequences get worse and worse, all the while entertainment cartels gain more and more control over our own government. We are living in the NEW era of the Robber Barons.
Need proof? DoJ says $222,000 damages in Capitol v. Thomas trial not unconstitutional (Eric Bangeman, Arstechnica):
“[G]iven the findings of copyright infringement in this case, the damages awarded under the Copyright Act’s statutory damages provision did not violate the Due Process Clause; they were not ‘so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense or obviously unreasonable,’” concludes the DoJ.
And RIAA: Jammie Thomas has “no basis” to complain about damage award (Eric Bangeman, Arstechnica):
The RIAA has responded to Jammie Thomas’ motion for a new trial or to have the amount of the jury award slashed. In their reply, the record labels argue that since Thomas agreed to the jury instructions and was aware of the possibility of a massive award, she has no basis to challenge the constitutionality of the statutory damages.
After a three-day trial last month, a Duluth, MN, jury found that Thomas willfully infringed on the record labels’ copyrights by downloading and distributing 24 copyrighted recordings. Under the provisions of the Copyright Act, they could have awarded the labels anywhere from $750 to $150,000 for each of the songs. They ultimately settled on $9,250 per song for a grand total of $222,000.
In her motion, Thomas argued that the award was unconstitutionally excessive, citing testimony in UMG v. Lindor (a case that the labels call “unrelated” in their response) that the labels only make about 70¢ per song sold online. Thomas instead would like to see damages limited to those that the labels can actually prove, arguing that any award above the labels’ actual damages is “purely punitive.” At most, statutory damages should be capped at 10 times actual damages.
Be it on your own heads if you are foolish enough to let this monster out of the bag in Canada.
Oh, and don’t forget that the USA tried to tell you Canadians what to do in your own country back in 2005 on this very issue (/. article):
U.S. Rejects Canadian Rejection of DMCA
Posted by timothy on Sun May 01, 2005 04:00 PM
from the spy-vs-mountie dept.
The Internet
P Starrson writes ” Slashdot readers may recall that last month Canadian policy makers rejected the DMCA for Canada. Not so fast apparently — the U.S. Trade Representative has released the annual Section 301 report which each year tells the rest of the world that they need stronger intellectual property protection. This year Canada is a particular target — the U.S. plans to conduct a special review of Canadian policies and explicitly rejects Canada’s rejection of the DMCA. A good summary on what this means from Canadian law professor Michael Geist.”
