p2pnet news P2P:- | Freedom:- “Lost amidst the huge backlash against the Canadian DMCA was a very brief comment from Industry Minister Jim Prentice during his press conference on Thursday,” blogs Michael Geist.

He’s referring to what’s looking increasingly like a successful attempt by the entertainment cartels to turn Canada into a marketing division where copyright enforcement rules over all else, and where Canadian men, women and even children will be treated as a new criminal class, as they are in America where the labels have succeeded in turning copyright infringement, a purely civil (and commercial) matter, into a major crime on a level with rape.

“Although I did not see it discussed in the media, Prentice committed the government to a public consultation on the future of the private copying levy in the fall,” says Geist.

Really? Does that mean Prentice may, after all, listen to Canadians instead of merely kowtowing to Hollywood and Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 organised music cartel?

“A consultation on the levy is a good thing,” says Geist, going on the levy system is, “clearly broken and Bill C-61’s format shifting provisions provide an unmistakable signal that the government isn’t crazy about it either.

“Yet the right approach would have been to consult on copyright more broadly before tabling a bill. With a bill before the Industry Committee in the fall, the consultation will get completely lost in the process”

But, “why a consultation on private copying but nothing on more flexible fair use or crown copyright or the multitude of other important concerns that this bill fails to address?”

Why indeed?

‘Trying to deliberately mislead you …’

The Harper government is, “set to introduce their newly ‘Made-in-the-USA’ Copyright Bill before the House stands for the summer,” said Appropriation Art immediately after news of Bill C-61 surfaced, going on:

“While the majority of hard-working Canadians concerned with copyright are not privy to either the contents or the scheduling of this Bill (User groups , Librarians, Federation of Students, Academics, Appropriation Art etc) it appears that the same cannot be said for Industry.

“Over the past weeks (and indeed months) a well choreographed series of scheduled ‘events’ has taken place by pro-American influenced organizations, Lobbyists, American Government officials and even President Bush himself.”

Conservative leader Stephen ‘Hollywood’ Harper’s government, “may be trying to deliberately mislead you about the contents of their new Copyright bill, something that some might suggest is a form of counterfeiting,” writes Russell McOrmond in p2pnet.

“You can see this in some of the new provisions which the government is using to claim that the new copyright bill ‘that balances the interests of Canadians who use digital technology and those who create content’ (Quote from Jim Prentice, Minister of Industry.”

He goes on >>>

The heading in the current section 29 of the Canadian Copyright Act is “Fair Dealings”, and it lists a number of limits to copyright where a copyright holder cannot require permission in order for citizens to do these activities. These limits to Copyright are necessary to allow for any balance between the rights of existing copyright holders and the rights of new creators and the public at large.

Bill C-61 has a number of new additions that have numbers such as 29.21 (Reproduction onto another medium or device), 29.22 (Reproduction of music), and 29.23 (Reproduction for later listening or viewing). Contrary to what the numbering suggests, none of these additions are “fair dealings” limits to copyright. They are simply a change in the default situation when the specific activity is not mention in the license agreement from the copyright holder.

Each of these sections includes text such as the following:

Contract prevails in case of inconsistency

(2) If the individual has downloaded the work or other subject-matter from the Internet and is bound by a contract that governs the extent to which the individual may reproduce the work or other subject-matter, the contract prevails over subsection (1) to the extent of any inconsistency between them.

This means that in the past when these specific activities are not mentioned that the default was that they were infringements, while now the default is that they aren’t infringements. They are still activities which are under the control of the copyright holder in their license/contract, are part of the permissions required (or able to be denied) by copyright, and thus do not qualify as limits or exceptions to Copyright.

The Conservative government is claiming that their bill is balanced based on a few key things

One is their reduction of statutory damages to $500 which will only have the effect of increasing the likelihood of lawsuits (copyright holders already had the ability to sue, but didn’t for lobbying and public relations reasons).

The other would be these additions to section 29 of the act which are being mislabeled as “fair dealings”.

My hope is that Canadians will notice this dishonest fine print and recognize that this bill has no balance at all. While it offers quite a bit to a tiny number of old-media/old-economy copyright holders who see new media and the new economy as a threat, it is a very bad bill for pretty much every other part of the economy and Canadian society.

‘Whatever rights content owners choose …’

Canada’s new copyright bill is more spin than ‘win-win,” says Jeremy De Beer in the National Post.

“Want to rip a CD to your iPod?” - he asks, continuing >>>

No problem. But only if you own the original CD and keep it indefinitely (no garage sales to get rid of that dusty disc collection in the basement without first wiping your iPod clean). And it has to be your iPod, as well. Technically, you can’t rip songs to your sister’s iPod, nor can your kids load up your Father’s Day gift with any songs before they give it to you. If you want to make a backup library of tracks that you downloaded legally from the Web, you’d better check that contract you “agreed” to (probably with a single click and without reading the fine print), first. Your backups might very well be prohibited - though you’d probably never know it until you got sued. Is all this consumer friendly? You tell me.

The worst thing about the bill is that it makes its own balancing provisions irrelevant. The bill essentially says that technology trumps whatever rights consumers or competitors might have otherwise had. So the law no longer matters.

People only have whatever rights content owners choose for them.

For instance, if the CD you’re now allowed to shift to your iPod is technologically locked down, then, well, sorry — you’re completely out of luck. Try to circumvent the access and copy controls, and the well-publicized provision to limit damages to $500 for noncommercial infringements no longer applies. You’re on the hook for up to $20,000 per infringement, which is actually $60,000 per song by the time you account for the composer, performer and record label. Multiply that by a dozen or so songs and you get a sense of the damage awards really possible if this bill becomes law.

There are very few exceptions to the prohibitions on accessing locked-down content — two examples are protecting yourself from privacy-invasive spyware and giving access to visually impaired persons. But even the few exceptions are probably useless because it is forbidden for anyone to create or distribute the tools to make access or privacy protection possible if the tools “unduly impair” the technological measure, whatever that means.

The provisions protecting digital locks are not just bad for consumers, educators, librarians and other ordinary Canadians. They’re bad for businesses, too.

And, “It used to be so easy,” laments Emru Townsend in PC World.

“I’d just tell people that as a Canadian (and therefore not under the thumb of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act), I could merrily crack DVD encryption for personal use without breaking the law. Reactions would range from envy to applause, or sometimes a mixture of both.”

Townsend states >>>

What really burns me is that Bill C-61 will make it illegal for people to crack DVD encryption. Not that I’m a raise-the-Jolly-Roger pirate, but I crack DVDs all the time as a matter of convenience. When I recently travelled to Los Angeles, I brought six movies (and their extras) with me to pass the time. Breaking the CSS encryption saved me the trouble of carrying eight discs with me. And the bill’s vague wording makes me wonder: would my multi-region DVD player constitute a “technology, device or component [that] is designed or produced primarily for the purposes of circumventing a technological measure”?

It’s amazing. We had twelve years to observe the parts of the DMCA that didn’t work or were too ambiguous - and then, with few exceptions, we went right ahead and copied them.

‘Up against angry Canadians’

However, Prentice and/or his caucus still have to contend with the Net.

Not too long ago, Bill C-61 would already have been a done deal. But when Prentice and his pals in the entertainment industry tried to ram it through before Christmas, they found themselves up against literally millions of angry Canadians who were, and still are, going online to make their feelings about a Canadian DMCA loudly and internationally known.

“DMCA is short for Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a US bill many believe was initially crafted by the entertainment industy behind closed doors and which is now used predominantly by the cartels as a weapon against consumers,” p2pnet posted >>>

Among other things, it criminalizes the production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services which bypass DRM —- (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control.

The Conservatives suggested in their Throne Speech in October that the CDMCA would be introduced almost immediately. But Ottawa law professor Michael Geist opened a Facebook group which quickly acquired many thousands of members.

Then a group organised by ‘Ideas Revolutionary’ Kempton Lam confronted Prentice in Calgary, Alberta (upper right), forcing the government to step sharply back.

Now, six months later, Harper and his government are still trying to put the interests of Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels in front of the people who elected them.

The “big copyright players” and the American administration, “should be thrilled with the government’s draft legislation,” states Philippa Lawson, director of CIPPIC (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic ).

They’re the big winners, she says, with, “Canadian consumers, security researchers, educators, students, privacy advocates, Canada’s public domain and Canadian innovators and creators” as the losers.

Bill C-60 was the last Liberal government’s attempt to amend Canadian copyright law, says CIPPIC staff counsel David Fewer, adding:

“The government has also rejected the made-in-Canada solutions to file-sharing proposed by Songwriters Association of Canada and endorsed by the Canadian Music Creators Coalition. Instead, this government has opted to import the American approach to these issues: granting special rights to digital locks and paving the road to US style lawsuits. The Americans have had those policies in place for decade, so we know that these laws offer no solution.

“These laws won’t make Canadian creators any wealthier.”

“Consumer rights, including new time-shifting and format shifting rights, disappear when the distributor uses a digital lock, says Fewer, adding, “look at what’s not in this bill: no fair dealing reform, no attention to parody or the needs of appropriation artists, and nothing to help documentary filmmakers”.

And, “The bill says clearly that file sharing will no longer be permissible, but how that will increase the income of music rights holders is a mystery,” says Bill Henderson, vice-president of the Songwriters Association of Canada, in the Toronto Star.

“How will the new law will be enforced – and by whom?” - he wonders.

However, the answer is easy: the Big 4 labels, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG, and Holywood in the shape of Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney.

They’ll use Canadian police forces (paid for by Canadian taxpayers), Canadian schools, with Canadian teachers and administrators (paid for by Canadian taxpayers) acting as copyright enforcers, and Canadian government departments (paid for by Canadian taxpayers) to serve and protect corporate entertainment cartel interests — to copyright Canada, just as they’ve done in America and other parts of the world.

Stay tuned.

. .Stumble It!

Michael Geist - Prentice Commits to Private Copying Consultation, June 17, 2008
marketing division - Canadian copyright bill: our very own DMCA?, June 12, 2008
new criminal class - Tanya Andersen zeroes in on RIAA, May 5, 2008
Appropriation Art - Canadian Bill Made In The USA, May 28, 2008
Russell McOrmond - Is Canada’s new Copyright bill dishonest?, June 13, 2008
National Post - Canada’s new copyright bill: More spin than ‘win-win’, June 16, 2008
PC World - Canada Warming Up Its Own DMCA, June 15, 2008
p2pnet - Don’t repeat US mistake, CLA tells Prentice, December 21, 2007
Toronto Star - Industry group applauds bill, June 13, 2008

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 6:20 am and is filed under Politics, Freedom, P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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