Help me understand C-61
I really don’t get this legislation, purely from a political standpoint. I completely understand that Harper will tend to swing between supporting a business agenda or toeing the American line, depending on who he’s pandering to at any given time. However, you have to wonder about the strategy of this. When I add the ACTA treaty, which Canada is negotiating on the international stage, I’m really confused and frightened about where this country is headed.
Is Harper baiting us? With his minority in the Commons, things could go either way. On the one hand, he gambles that the Liberals will vote with something like this to avoid bringing down the government and causing an election. This strategy counts on gaining seats under that scenario. However, legislation like this is so thoroughly repugnant that the voter backlash could very well lose them seats.
Since my fomenting would only add more noise to a very loud protest, all I can say is that we should be very scared. Michael Geist’s key points about the fine print:
However, check the fine print since the rules are subject to a host of strict limitations and, more importantly, undermined by the digital lock provisions. The effect of the digital lock provisions is to render these rights virtually meaningless in the digital environment because anything that is locked down (ie. copy-controlled CD, no-copy mandate on a digital television broadcast) cannot be copied. As for every day activities like transferring a DVD to your iPod - those are infringing too. Indeed, the law makes it an infringement to circumvent the locks for these purposes.
And more fine print ….
Canadians can’t actually use these exceptions since the tools needed to pick the digital lock in order to protect their privacy are banned. In other words, check the fine print again - you can protect your privacy but the tools to do so are now illegal. Dig deeper and it gets worse. Under the Canadian law, its up to the government to introduce new exceptions if it thinks it is needed.
Still more ….
The other headline grabber is the $500 fine for private use infringement. This will be heralded as a reasonable compromise, but check the fine print. Canadian law already allows a court to order damages below $500 per infringement, so the change may not be as dramatic as expected (though $500 in damages is the maximum for private use infringement). Moreover, it is already arguably legal to download sound recordings in Canada. Under the proposal, there are exceptions for uploading or posting music online (ie. making available) and even the suggestion that posting a copyright-protected work to YouTube could result in the larger $20,000 per infringement damage award.
And finally, why this bill might actually be good for open source development (likely contrary to what the Conservatives and their business buddies probably want) ….
In other words, online materials that are available under a Creative Commons license are fair game (as they are already), but most everything else is still potentially subject to a restriction. This was precisely what many feared - rather than pursuing the far superior expansion of fair dealing, the education community got a provision that does little to enhance classroom learning.
Jonathan Zittrain writes about these very kinds of issues in his new book and makes the argument for allowing digital property and the access to it to remain unfettered. Unfortunately the worldview of the Conservatives seems to favour closed gates and the concept of wealth-building licensing.
The access issue is already being threatened as ISPs begin clamping down on customers suspected of downloading bit torrents and similar large media files. It has nothing to do with, as Roger’s asserts, managing network resources, and everything to do with managing access to content and looking toward leveraging access for higher fees.
Don’t worry, though, the aforementioned ACTA treaty will ensure any modicum of privacy you had with regard to what you are accessing or downloading would be completely gone.
June 14th, 2008 at 3:35 am
It would seem to me that the Cons aren’t baiting us because it has become patently obvious that the Liberal’s will either cave on votes or vote for anything, just so long as there is no election.
I doubt that the Liberal Caucus would have put forward copyright legislation that would have been much better had they been in power. Let’s not forget that Sam Bulte when she was Heritage Minister was being thrown fundraisers by the very groups lobbying for stricter copyright legislation.
Charlie Angus (NDP MP) a professional musician who makes money from his copyrighted material has been vigorously advocating for copyright legislation that balances consumers, content producer and artists and industry. He has been doing this for years before Cons won their minority and since.
June 14th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Jaybird’s right that the Liberals wouldn’t have done any better (or would have been worse), and you’re right that we ought to be very worried by this. There is no redeeming quality in this legislation that an average voter would want unless they are brainwashed, ignorant, or a greedy music exec. In other words it’s political suicide if the truth is widely learned.
Spreading the truth is difficult, and will become very difficult if it passes.
June 14th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Agreed all around. We should thank our lucky stars that someone like Angus is speaking out. I’m almost at the point where I’m thinking Geist is a national hero.
His analysis has been picked up everywhere, internationally, places like Boing Boing. I hope he keeps up the diatribe.
June 16th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Actually, I’d say the Liberals did do better. They tabled C-60 to amend the Copyright Act when they were in power. While it was still a bad bill, it did avoid the worst part of C-61 - it only made it illegal to bypass DRM for the purposes of infringing copyright.
BTW - the Tories promised to remove the private copying levy, but I don’t see that in this bill.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:32 am
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