Yesterday's House of Commons debate featured some discussion on the forthcoming copyright reform bill. Industry Minister Jim Prenticee expanded on the government's plans:
Our government is aware also of the need for copyright reform and that this is essential to ensuring that Canada remains competitive. We will introduce legislation in the next few months that will provide legal measures for rights holders, clarify the rules relating to copyright as they apply to Internet service providers, address the educational and research use of copyrighted materials and address consumer interests.
No big surprises here – the bill is coming, it may be Industry rather than Heritage that leads, the bill will include DMCA-style provisions (the "legal measures for rights holders"), ISPs will get their safe harbour, and the government may try to curry favour with the provinces with an Internet exception for education. The inclusion of consumer interests is noteworthy – I've argued that the government must surely include a strong consumer package to generate popular support for the bill and this is the first indication that the bill might include such provisions.
Hopes
I would certainly hope that strong consumer(“/fan/creator?”) rights protections would be built into any such changes from the beginning. Otherwise, we risk a straight importation of the DMCA into Canadian law, and *that* serves no one but Big Business alone. *Not* something to look forward to, but to resist through the courts, one suspects.
DCMA
Is there more information on what the DCMA-like terms are expected to be? I mean, should I be preparing to go to jail over this if I’m not willing to accept it and make a point of forcing the issue, or am I just looking at more debt?
Is this making p2P of copyrighted works non legal?
Palonek
The more interesting question that everyone is avoiding, why is this such a big issue? Is it due to the fact that CDs DVDs cost incredible amount of money. Look at the great success of apple and how much apple has helped out the industry. Edward Palonek at http://edwardpalonek.ca PS I just think that the real issues are ignored and some people are just reacting to the headline instead of approaching the problem.
I\’ve tried to stay current on all of this (thanks mostly to your work on this blog, Michael).
My lack of legal knowledge will obviously show in this question, but I\’ll ask it anyways. Given that none of us know exactly how it\’s going to look, should our government choose to ignore the recent iPod decision and P2P (bittorrent especially) clearly violates the new copyright bill, will the industry (or law enforcement) be able to pursue legal actions against people who were using P2P (bittorrent especially) prior to the arrival of the new bill?
I was asked this question (literally) 5 times last week at work, and I\’ve never really considered it. I can\’t imagine that they can, and everything I\’ve heard from CRIA reps suggest that they are not interested in pursuing legal action against violators, but it\’s still something I\’d love to hear a comment on from someone who knows how all of this works.
Thanks in advance