p2pnet - rss feed: Bell Canada PVR woes ‘Tip of C-61 Iceberg’
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Canadians watching the Olympic coverage from Beijing can hardly have missed the Bell commercial touting a new digital video recorder that features an external hard drive permitting users to “record forever.”
The archiving functionality may sounds enticing, yet last week several media reports noted that Industry Minister Jim Prentice’s Bill C-61 forbids Canadians from recording television programs for archival purposes.
Indeed, the new “time shifting” provision in the Prentice bill contains at least a dozen restrictions that could leave consumers facing significant liability for those that fail to comply. Innovative businesses do not fare much better as they will also be forced to shelve potential new services if the bill becomes law. For example, Bill C-61 explicitly prohibits a network-based PVR that Telus has considered introducing into the Canadian market.
These restrictions leave Canadians trailing the United States, where consumers have enjoyed the legal right to time shift for more than two decades without the statutory restrictions that Prentice has proposed. Moreover, earlier this month a U.S. court ruled that Cablevision, a leading cable provider, can legally offer its network-based PVR.
While it is tempting to focus on the need to improve the bill’s PVR provisions, the reality is that the spotlight on Bell’s promotion highlights a pervasive problem within Bill C-61. Surprisingly for a political party that typically promotes “market based solutions,” the bill introduces a complex regulatory framework for everyday consumer activities and represents an unprecedented incursion into the property rights of millions of Canadians.
Just how far beyond restrictive television recording does Bill C-61 go?
The bill prohibits transferring a copy of most commercial DVDs to a portable video player. It blocks parents from creating backup copies of their toddler’s DVDs. It precludes audiophiles from making copies of their store-bought CDs into multiple digital formats. It renders it an act of infringement to transfer music from a copy-protected CD to an iPod.
It provides that students violate the law when they by-pass digital locks on electronic books in order to copy and paste a paragraph of text for a class assignment. It stops cellphone users from unlocking their phones in order to move to a different carrier. It even places backup programs and devices under a cloud of illegality.
Consumer and civil liberties groups have expressed their concern about these effects. The recent revelations about Bell’s PVR raises the question about the corporate responsibility of companies that are effectively downloading legal risk onto their customers by marketing products that could raise the prospect of liability.
Many companies have begun to speak out against the proposed legislation; however, they may need to include more direct warnings with their products. Bell is certainly free to market the record forever PVR, but surely it should also advise customers that archiving television programs may lead to legal liability if the bill becomes law. Similarly, as Apple touts the benefits of its Time Machine backup hard-drive, it should also warn purchasers that multiple backup copies of songs and videos would violate Bill C-61.
While the Prentice plan is still at an early legislative stage, consumers invest hundreds of dollars in these products with the expectation that they can use them as promoted for years to come. Given the prospect that the law could render everyday uses illegal, Canadian consumers should be entitled to know that they may be buying more than they bargained for with their purchases.
Michael Geist
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist[at]uottawa.ca and is on-line at www.michaelgeist.ca.]
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August 18th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
let you not forget, a dvd rip of a pre 1958 dvdr that has no copyright is subject to this new bills , anti circumvention rules and will get you a 20,000 FINE and 500$ fine for downloading it, and OH can’t pay a fine?
Maximum in canada for non payment of fines = 1 day per 10$ or in this case 2000 days in jail for each instance of the activity. Possible you could get it lowered to 1 day per 25$ which is still over 1.5 years for a file that you could sell, and just about do anyhting but rip it from the dvdr.
With the US armies mind machine , we can then add that to the internet , so that each user that wishes to use the internet has to have the device active so you can’t even think about doing anyhting wrong else you get charged…
What was that movie with tom cruise where people that think about crime get convicted….and then something goes wrong.
I no longer have any faith or trust in the “SYSTEM”.
No one else does either, so as you continue to see polls drop in the percentage that vote,
one day when it is less then 50% , someone might create the
NON VOTE PARTY.
A party that represents those that didnt vote and by proxy unless the overall vote = 50% +1 , then no parliament can sit.
P.S. rogers traffic shaping is now 5-10Kbytes during same times as guess who bell,
and the last talk i had with bell means i am going to be launching a misrepresentation suit versus bell.
Note that this type in ontario is class action moveable and i will give furthar details
seems that they like to talk a lot on phones htinking your not recording , and your not above worm intelligence.
Teksavvy, while id reccomend them as they are the only large provider ( still a 3rd party dsl of bells) that you can get what you pay for, it still puts cash into bell.
BELL is worried about ccts complaints ( they hung up on me after i said my storey as i always do and said if not rectified i would complain for each instance and that = 1000$ cost to bell per each one )
and its profits, half last years and slowly losing more.
Also thanks to this situation i was unable to do an interview with one of Mr Geists, compatriots at Cippic.
Also it has directly or indirectly lead to a lessoning of my health.
Imagine if 1 tenth what they have done to me they did to your mother, father, grand mother( note they ripped off my fatehr for fees they admit to me they shouldn’t have and even after putting it on my bill and then crediting me back they took the money from him when there should have been no authorization to do so.
Perhaps informing visa of the fraud and the RCMP might also be some course as there is definitely some cause of alarm that bell employees are able to take monies from peoples credit cards when they are not supposed to be able to.
I have tried to help by debunking the 5$ SAC lisense fee, come up with great ways and ideas for fair copyright, set off the alarm bells about the fines and public domain issues, i have supported the net neutrality of teksavvy and have always tried to help EVERYONE i can.
NOW perhaps you or others can help me.
CHRoNoSS ( not real name ….sorry not yet)
chronoss2008@hush.com
goto dslreports.com , forums and then to the 289 $ bill , they locked the topic as i had said that i would talk to this crull before proceeding. Let’s see if bell wants a fight with someone who had his contract breached.
“bell is not going to honor your contract period” , and my response:”then cancel everything and you can’t penalize me with early termination fees with that admission”
They did
then gave it back
then went after a credit card of my fathers for more then 209$
Everyone that lives here hopes he will get involved, but he’s 63 and has had 4 heart attacks already in life plus is going through a divorce, HE DON”T NEED it. So i will fight.
when you cancel an account thats it OVER DONE.
next day i start a new account get a phone…..guess what?
They didnt cancel the phone and tried to bill him again with charges they shouldn’t.
He knowing he had to do something got someone there to cancel everything, and i got stuck with 198.00 in deactivation fees.
then expressvu said id get a 240$ credit but it would not show up till next bill ( even though i was canceling)
( 2 months it didnt work i even had my dad try and take the things( pvrs) back to where i was told on the phone.
They would not take them so i was stuck paying and paying.
Forget early termination , how about extortion and racketeering and NEVER ABLE TO TERMINATE.
to date i have got the admission they “knowlingly or unknowingly made a mistake and my dad did not have the authorization to cancel the phone and i got back the 198 in deactivation fees,
however expressvu told me that unless i continue the service i do not get the 240$ credit, so i am stuck having to pay for 2 months it did not work ( will eventually make website and show you a lovely picture of what obstructs the dish and had i known ( am also told a previous dish user whom lived here had simular probs) i would never have bothered.
so expressvu gives me 80 of the 240 they told belli would get.
(lady that reactivated phone , called expressvu and was told i would get the credit and she then reactivated my phone)
now im out 160.
oddly it amounts to the exact 209 they stole off my dad ( coincidence?)