Many people have written to ask for concrete examples of how the Canadian DMCA would impact everyday activities. In response, today I'm going to start a five part series of a typical Canadian family's potential encounter with the law. The fictional family consist of:
Jim and Josee live in a Calgary suburb together with their three children Stephen (age 16), Rona (age 10), and Diane (age 4). Jim is the chief librarian at the National Energy Library, while Josee teaches media and communications at a local high school.
This post focuses on Jim. Soon after he arrives into the office on Monday morning, he is contacted by a researcher located in the field who asks him to track down an article and to email an electronic copy as soon as possible. Jim finds the article, scans and sends it via email. After work, he drops into the local HMV and purchases a DVD copy of the movie Juno. At home, he transfers a copy of the movie to his video iPod for viewing on an upcoming business trip.
If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, all of Jim's copying activities arguably violate the law.
Jim’s act of scanning and distribution of the article should qualify as fair dealing. Apparently the government thinks it does not, however, since Bill C-61 contains a specific provision to allow librarians to digitize a paper copy on behalf of a patron. That provision only works if they take steps to ensure that the recipient does not transfer the digital copy to anyone else and only uses it for five days. Since those technical restrictions were not imposed on the researcher, this would not qualify (Section 30.2(5.01)). The ripping of the Juno DVD to the video iPod clearly violates the law. Prentice's format shifting provisions are limited to videocassettes – DVDs are off-limits (Section 29.21). Moreover, ripping the DVD likely required circumventing anti-copying technologies, which under Bill C-61, would violate the law.
But all of this is already unlawful, so what’s new?
inter-library digital loans
Strangely enough, s. 30.2(5.01) would appear only to cover inter-library digital loans (“make a copy of printed matter in digital form and provide it to a person who has requested it through *another* library”).
The hypothetical proposed here does not appear to be explicitly covered (unless I have missed some other provision).
what’s new?
Exactly … what’s new?
(retoric)
inter-library digital loans
MZ,
You’re right, the bill does not explicitly cover this situation and only mentions digital loans mediated through two libraries. Considering that this is a common task that many librarians and researchers undertake, I’d like to think it is implicitly covered, but, since this bill is intended to become a law, there is no room for implicit interpretation.
This bill does not have fair and reasonable use in mind and that’s why universities and research organizations need to take a strong stand against it.
No, right now its lawful for you to back up any media you have bought, Big Media may not like it but right now in Canada it is legal and no one is subject to fines, even if said media was copy protected.
Why do you think they created the new Bill? The provision of copying your content will be trumped by DRM, if the bill is passed and digital locks are exactly what the media companies will fall back on so they lock in repeat consumers.
Ripping music
So would it also be illegal for me to “format shift” the Juno soundtrack from my CD to my iPod? How about “format shifting” from vinyl to a CD or iPod?
Are answers to these questions different under C-61 than under the current law?
This is all nice, but …
This is all nice, but how exactly are they planning to enforce these new copyright restrictions. It would just seem like a waste of tax dollars for cops to randomly peruse people’s record albums to check for any possible … gasp … copied cds. Border guards would be a different story, but I’m sure people could navigate around those measures (like smuggling usb sticks in certain “orifices”).
I think the greater risk is using p2p networks, as they can be traced through the IP address. It seems that copyright thieves simply have to find a new way to trade/download music/movies/files that allows them to truly remain anonymous. People could even swap music through msn/emails as copyright police don’t have access to that information.
what about streaming tvs/movies without appropriating them? Is it illegal to watch copyrighted material on youtube(watching, not posting)?
format shift
Bryce
For a summary of how the new format-shifting provisions would work, take a look here: [ link ]
Re: Ripping music
“Are answers to these questions different under C-61 than under the current law?”
Well actually yes they are. Under the current law, the Federal Court ruled (or probably more like commented) that format shifting of music was legal under the levy provisions of the copyright act. As well we stood a reasonably good chance that private home TV recording and DVD format shifting we all participate in would have been ruled to be reasonable as ‘fair dealings’ by a court. This bill spells these things out as being explicitly illegal in most cases now and in the future.
Any reasonable changes to the copyright act should take common socially acceptable activities which currently fall into a gray area and find a way to legitimize them under the law. This bill goes in completely the opposite direction and explicitly bans these socially acceptable activities. Do we really want to be putting laws on the books that we know criminalizes such common activities? The result will be a further erosion of respect for an already poorly respected law, and significant burdens to institutions and business which do not have the same leeway as individuals to ignore bad laws.
bill c 61
i’m kinda disgusted by this bill that i don’t even know where to start. based on your hypothetical scenario…and this doesn’t happen all the time at the library (tpl), but it’s been done by my librarians in the tcdsb from about as far back as i can remember…and i only just finished highschool, but if i needed help with something (information research on a topic…and before we had computers, internet widely available in schools), we would use books, and sometimes these books were too heavy to carry home/restricted use to only in the library (like they have at the reference library downtown) and i would usually get a photocopy of an important page/(s)…now under this law my librarian? now has the right to enforce that i don’t duplicate that information (comercially?) or have that same duplicated page in my use for more than 5 days? wth…it’s “illegal”…i’m not even going to start about digital format of data…i’m talking about straight paper information copyrights. i may be oldschool…but that’s still how i do my research, on paper, from books mostly, at the library…and now i can’t do that anymore/to a certain extent. can anyone actually explain to me why this is?
bill c 61
i\’m kinda disgusted by this bill that i don\’t even know where to start. based on your hypothetical scenario…and this doesn\’t happen all the time at the library (tpl), but it\’s been done by my librarians in the tcdsb from about as far back as i can remember…and i only just finished highschool, but if i needed help with something (information research on a topic…and before we had computers, internet widely available in schools), we would use books, and sometimes these books were too heavy to carry home/restricted use to only in the library (like they have at the reference library downtown) and i would usually get a photocopy of an important page/(s)…now under this law my librarian? now has the right to enforce that i don\’t duplicate that information (commercially?) or have that same duplicated page in my use for more than 5 days? wth…it\’s \”illegal\”…i\’m not even going to start about digital format of data…i\’m talking about straight paper information copyrights. i may be oldschool…but that\’s still how i do my research, on paper, from books mostly, at the library…and now i can\’t do that anymore/to a certain extent. can anyone actually explain to me why this is?
bill c 61
sorry about the double post. anyways also to comment about tax payers dollars going toward more crockery enforcement of this bill…why won’t they put the money into something the canadian public actually care about. was the greater public consultated about what gets covered in this law…i understand that not everything needs to be run by the people first but in regarding something that directly effects the consumer & our privacy acts…what led to this law being proposed…i hope it has nothing to do with the debacle american copyright digital media ruling that passed last year/the year before that…and also how can i petition this.
Enforcement
This law does not need to be enforceable. It is broad enough that CRIA can profit by sending everyone suspected of having used a computer subpoenas with an option of out-of-court settlement.
Here’s another one
I’m currently enrolled in a Master’s program online. The University is in Alberta, I live in BC. Anytime I need to get an article that isn’t available online, the library at my University can send it to me, or track it down via interlibrary loan.
Now they’ll have to “take steps to ensure that I can’t share that article and that it expires after 5 days”. I can foresee all kinds of technical headaches with this setup.
How would they
Who would it be that would be enforcing subpoenas anyway? RCMP? CSIS? Local city police? How would they find out what we downloaded/shifted anyway? Through our ISP’s? How much man-power do they have to effectively pull this off. Would they have a right to browse all my backup DVD’s? Would there be a possible loophole in this bill? How serious is the task force in my city? As far as I can tell, we only have 4 members of the RCMP in some sort of internet task force…for the whole province…
Is it just me that realizes it’s cheaper to be busted with a gram of marijuana?
Yes
That was my Denis Leary rant. I suppose my main question is: How serious are the authorities on this issue? I wonder if they feel they have more important things to take care of…like murderers and pedophiles.
Format shifting CDs
@Bryce
“So would it also be illegal for me to “format shift” the Juno soundtrack from my CD to my iPod? How about “format shifting” from vinyl to a CD or iPod?”
The answer is… depends. Vinyl is not known for having digital locks, so making a copy would be legal. The CDs however, it depends on the distributer.
Many CDs in the US have extremely simple digital locks to prevent copying. If you have to hold down the shift key when inserting the CD into your PC (Copy Control, which was used by EMI until 2006), or if you need to use an app to bypass the intentionally introduced bad sectors which are designed to confuse a PC, then you are illegally copying. If you stuck said CD into your stereo, and used your PC to record the audio-out, then you are “defeating” the digital locks, and so you are illegally copying.
It’s quite frustrating that the government has essentially defined the right of “fair use” (ie making personal copies, format-shifting, etc), but then allowed the corporations to decide (through digital locks) “when” you are allowed to exercise that right…
the minority conservative pary and the c
no mdd of course they don’t have other more important things to think and debate over like murdererd, healthcare line ups, citizens rights/protections, afgahn etc… i mean with all the artists in the world complaining about their copyright rights and their right to generate an income…consumers rights in this instance seem to take the backburner to those who actually have levarge in bargaining with our canadian government ie. the idiots in california and beyond, various american politicians, and hollywood. i never knew those people had such a big wielding stick.
i don’t download by the way…and i am disgusted about my internet provider throttling my service, but that’s another issue. this one although i think that there needs to be a creative uproach to updating the previous law that although vague was in the interest of the consumer public…this one leads to all sorts of confusions.
i can’t “purchase” a disk…and then back it up??? more than once or twice…i miss the days of bad vhs and having the right to record everything american/not that i wanted for the use of my family without being sued off my arse. i’m not interested in all these medias that seek to restrict the use of the purchasing party…if that’s the case and all these entertainment companies don’t want people viewing/interacting/buying their products…then why are they stilll there…no wonder they’re loosing money. in the end they need to see that the people who support these so called arts aren’t stupid. here’s to seeing more sunlight in the upcoming years cause i’m not going to be supporting people who want to restrict my rights as a consumer…and also for the cpc…i never vote for them, and i realize that the current liberals may be too chicken to actually vote down some contraversial rules that have been proposed by this minority government…but they should all be warned, i can vote now, i can lobby my family and friends to vote in my favour, and we’re not going to be voting for harper. as far as i’m concerned he bends down too much to the bidding of dubya.
@MDD
“Who would it be that would be enforcing subpoenas anyway? RCMP? CSIS? Local city police?”
In the US, it is the RIAA doing the enforcement, showing up in FBI-like jackets.
[ link ]
WOW
enforcement:
YOU after the BELL DPI sees your activities , just mails you a ticket, 500 download technically also applies to the above , as trasfering is technically “downloading or even one might argue “uploading”- worse then 500$ its 20000$
so the above case geist isn’t all the way there.
YOU get
20000 for anti circumventing the juno dvdr
then 20000 ( they can say ) for uploading it to your ipod, or 500$ depends on how its interpreted.
He gets another 20000 for the scanning issue
so i see him nailed to the tree for a “in hte mail ticket” of 40,500.
NOw the ticket might be something like the RIAA does in USA, pay us 20000 and you wont have to pay 40,500 at court and or do jail time if you cant pay.
10$ = 1 day in jail = maximum you can receive for a fine.
these law enforcing angencies
“RCMP? CSIS? Local city police?”
don’t they have anything better to do?
and i’m always appalled when i hear about these american cases. i can’t believe money overrules everything. i’m not saying the liberals are any better…but i can’t even believe what is in this bill is being proposed. the bad parts/the underlining exceptions overrule any good that was apart of this bill.
scenario
Say you have a $10000 CD collection. You have every file backed up on your iPod and on your laptop. Your house suddenly catches on fire and your $10000 music CD collection is destroyed. According to this law, you would have to destroy all the copies on your device, and repurchase that $10000 in CD’s. If you kept the files after you lost your collection, you would be liable for damages, because you no longer own the original media. Ashes won’t stand up in court either.
then he can get sued
OH yah then he can get sued be the rights holders
civilly and the damages there no one knows….
now imagine if he bought a dvdr that the film year was 1933
has no copyright
all the above still applies
except no one can sue you civilly
Enforcement part 2
I talked to a police officer and they don’t see how anyone could enforce it.
Like i said the way they can do it is after getting evidence just mail you a ticket kind alike a traffic ticket only you get it in the mail and have to show up in court to say your piece.
When every internet user there has ever been gets a ticket, you can be sure the entire system goes poof over night and the askov(not sure about spelling but its relation to getting to trail in a reasonable time) situation begins a new with real criminals getting out and off because of the stupidity of this.
voicing your opinion
i’m not sure if i can do this on mr geist’s (thanks for the credible info) site, but for all the ontario people there’s going to be a discussion about this on cp24 on legal briefs just like there was on that bill about bill c-10…which i supported on behalf of the canadian artists…and as an artist i would like to support those who are in favour of bill c 61…but i can’t do it as a consumer and as a civilian.
[ link ]
isp policing
the first thing that happens after this bill is passed, is that all isps send out warning letters to all their clients…then they are off the hook, and quite liable to send your name off to the cria, or whichever organization they believe you to be “stealing” from. We must fight this horrible bill. isp policing is absolutely intolerable!
printing
Hi all,
Is there anywhere a decent English-only printable version of the bill can be found? The official one requires 58 pages to print, and it’d be nice to cut that in half.
Thanks
dvds
My dad recently spent (alot) on some dvds in London, that you can’t buy here on a trip. He didn’t realize about the different zones, and that they can’t play here. I’ve made them region free for him, by re-recording them using dvd-shrink. Considering he paid around 200$ CAD for these DVD’s, it’s strange to think this will be illegal under the DMCA, uh, bill C-61.
copies of the bill
Ron said:”Is there anywhere a decent English-only printable version of the bill can be found? The official one requires 58 pages to print, and it\’d be nice to cut that in half.”
NO RON, you are not suppose to print it. The bill is protected by copyright. The fact that it requires 58 pages to print is in fact a form of TPM. If you do actually succeed in printing out this bill, the RCMP will come to your door with a bill for $20500. If you refuse to pay it you will quickly find yourself in Gitmo.
The RCMP work for us now. You are all under our control.
Have a nice day
From my reading of the proposed section 41.1 (3), it seems if Jim made his copy for “private purposes”, then statutory damages do not apply, and so the DVD copyright holder can only sue for actual damages. If Jim bought his copy specifically for copying to his mobile video player, then no actual damages would have occurred.
English-only version
@ Ron
You should lodge a compliant with the CL&F office.
[ link ]
All web presentation of information to the public is reuired to be accessible according to W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines v. 1.0 by December 31, 2008.
Actually, they were required to be compliant with the same standards as of December 31, 2002.
That would have fixed your problem.
Official language legislation get more attention that accessibility, functionality or usability.
Go figure.
Accessibility is the “official language” of people with disabilities. Plus, it helps everyone.
Accessibility
“Accessibility is the ‘official language'”
Now doesn’t that sound like a trite statement?
Think about it.
If it is not accessible or usable in, its current format, does it matter what language it is in?
P.S. the CAPTCHA test, to post a comment, is NOT accessible to many people with disabilities.
Bill C-61-NeoFascism
This bill will hogtie indie musicians like nothing else. Record labels do not support the artist–they mold the artist into what they think the artist should be, and if you don’t look like the youth ideal, your music becomes irrelevant to them. Then, to top it all off, they keep 99.99% of the CD sales to themselves, all in the name of marketing. The tagline “protecting musicians’ interests” is BULLS***. No indie musician ever wants his/her listeners to be put at risk of getting sued. Thanks for nothing Cosnervative Fascists. Enjoy listening to your pseudo pornographic garbage on cable TV because that’s all that’s going to be left if you succeed in censoring us.
This doesn’t strike me as typical family, outside the halls of University of Ottawa
Bad Law
It seems to me that Mr Prentice’s comment that the gov doesn’t expect the police to actually enforce the law in individual, non-commercial cases, is a clear admission that this is Bad Law. We will be in a situation where gov has tacitly encouraged citizens to break the law, just by doing the sorts of things they have always done. Enforcement will then occur when someone in a legal position of power “feels like it.”
This is a recipe for many bad outcomes.
Don’t do it.
Enforcement
According to the fact sheet linked to above, uploading to a p2p service is considered commercial and thus could engage law enforcement.
“For infringements that are not for private purposes, the current range of statutory damages (between $500 and $20 000 for each work infringed) would remain available. For example:
* Posting music using the Internet or peer-to-peer (P2P) technology.
* Posting a copyright-protected work, such as a picture or video, onto a website such
as Facebook or YouTube…”
Really, the only thing left to do is stop buying music & movies from the corporate whores, and turn to independent music & movies, who have nothing to do with this crap. Let the entire greedy industry go down faster than a rock in water.
Dumb Dumb Law
Industry has their collective heads up their collective asses. The net result of me downloading music has been SALES!! I have purchased more CD’s in the last couple of years than at any other time in my life because I heard the song, I liked the song and I wanted to own the uncompressed song on a shiny CD. One of the largest catalysts to me was Pandora Radio (I used to get it at work but work blocked it…). I can attribute at least 5 CD’s directly to Pandora in only about 2 months of listening, CD’s that I would have never considered buying before I heard them on Pandora, bands I have never heard of.
Next, have you tried to actually go and buy music? The selection is HORRIBLE. I have been forced to use online services and then be at the mercy of Canada Post, if the online retailer has the CD in stock. No longer are there stores where impulse CD sales are commonplace. (The quality of new “music” is another rant, one I will keep to myself)
As far as DRM is concerned, many companies (Microsucks “Plays for unsure” is one such example) have shown that they have an absolute lack of integrity when it comes to reliable DRM infrastructures. If there is money to be made, screw the consumer. If consumers have no recourse to circumvent broken or orphaned digital locks, what is stopping industry from simply creating a new business model around said broken locks? “Oh, you want to play your MLB videos you already payed us for?? Please send $99.99 to the following address…”
The simple threat of legislation such as this should cause ALL Canadians to protest to every single government official that they can think of. I implore you all to write to your MLA, Jim Prentice and the PM at the very least. I know I have, and I will do it again and again and again until someone listens. (I already have grey hair so…)
Dave
Jim and Josee live in a Calgary suburb together with their three children Stephen (age 16), Rona (age 10), and Diane (age 4). Jim is the chief librarian at the National Energy Library, while Josee teaches media and communications at a local high school. They are of course a typical Canadian family, with a joint income of over $200,000 and a house valued at almost $1 million in the hot Calgary market, and between them they have four university degrees. To get to work, Jim drives his new-model sedan at 1km over the limit; at the corner of the road to his office, he slows down as he turns right on red but doesn’t come to a complete halt. Under Canada’s draconian road traffic laws, both of these acts are now illegal, and he faces heavy fines, maybe even imprisonment and the potential loss of his license.
“Arguably” violate the law? They do or they don’t. Truth is, it’s very easy for Jim to organize all of this in line with Bill C-61. And if it will “violate” the law under C-61 then it certainly does so now. Jim is no worse off
copyright law applied to libraries
Mr Geist, as I’m sure you know, libraries delivering content from paper or electronic are bound by a variety of constraints, particularly licensing agreements, above and beyond copyright law. Those constraints differ depending upon the delivery recipient. I think you’ve picked a poor example, as you’re talking about a library delivering to one of its own patrons. It’s not at all clear to me that C-61 would affect this at all. If you wanted to use a better example/test case, you should change the scenario to library-to-library.
Preaching to the choir
While I agree with the concerns in Jim’s scenario (especially the format-shifting), I’m afraid that it’s only preaching to the choir.
Though we — all people who are technologically adept — may and often do use new technologies like format-shifting, the vast majority of the public does not. They don’t backup their CDs or their DVDs. Only a small portion of them transfer from DVD to other devices.
As a computer technician, I have visited many typical households, whose residents are not as familiar with technology as we are. I find the vast majority of them will share music with their friends, download music that has been recommended to them, make copies of CDs for friends, and transfer their music from CD to their computer and often then to an MP3 player. Some also have DVRs — more and more every day — and they make quite liberal use of these, recording all of their favorite shows every night, just like they used to do with their VCR.
Now these are all use cases that you would do well to compare under current law and bill C-61. These will drive how to the general public just how this legislation will outlaw something that they currently take for granted.
Re: Objctive
While your point was clear, you failed to back it up with any explanation.
Firstly, an important part of law is that it is never absolute. It’s impossible to consider and document every possible case that could ever occur. Laws act as guidelines which judges then interpret to fit the case at hand. This is why an action could “arguably” break a law — that the act breaks the law is argued by the prosecution, objected to by the defense, and the judge makes the decision. Because of this, it can never be said for sure that an act breaks the law, unless that act is specifically forbidden in the law.
I also fail to see how the entire scenario of Jim can be fit within C-61. For example, format-shifting from DVD to his personal media player (at least currently) requires removing the DRM present on the DVD content, which is in direct contravention of C-61. There is no exception made for personal use in this case. How do you propose it could be argued as legal under C-61?
Lastly, you make the unfounded claim that anything that will violate the law under C-61 certainly does so now. But if that’s the case, why is C-61 being tabled? Obviously it must contain some differences from existing law, otherwise there would be no point in drafting it. For an example of at least one case where it differs, we can go back to the case of removing DRM. There is currently no Canadian law which makes it illegal to remove DRM, especially in the case where that DRM is a program installed on your computer. You have every right to remove that program if and when you choose. Under the C-61, that would become illegal, as it would result in circumventing copy protection.
So Jim would be worse off. He would have additional limitations imposed upon him by law, which would make illegal actions that he used to take for granted. It would prevent him from doing things that are otherwise apart of his job. It would limit his ability to access the media that he has paid the copyright holder for permission to use. It would even leave him in a position where he may lose access to media he has paid for the permission to use, without any recourse.
A librarian’s view
“Soon after he arrives into the office on Monday morning, he is contacted by a researcher located in the field who asks him to track down an article and to email an electronic copy as soon as possible. Jim finds the article, scans and sends it via email.”
There’s a workaround to this that would be permissible under the current law, and probably under the proposed law — e-mail him a link to the article that is accessible only by logging in to the company library website. We do this all the time with users.
The issue is much less clear when it comes to inter-library loan. Currently most Canadian libraries will send only “print” versions of articles usually electronically to the user’s library. They are then printed out by the library and the user picks them up. Sending an electronic copy to the user would be illegal under current law. It might be permissible under the new law, given its provisions for sending articles electronically. However, and this is the big problem with the new law, if the e-journal provider has specified in the contract with the library that articles are not to be sent to other libraries via inter-library loan, there’s no legal way to proceed.
If the new law is clear about one thing, it’s that the provider of e-documents has the right to restrict distribution of digital documents. I wonder if taking a screen shot of a “view only” document would be considered under the proposed new law as circumventing the digital protection?
Someone pointed out to me that the government may have an ulterior motive that goes beyond just being in bed with big business. This bill gives law enforcement agencies more opportunities than ever to snoop in peoples’ lives. 1) They created a law that makes everyone guilty. 2) Enforcing that law gives police access to our most important stores of private information: computers, laptops, portable electronic devices. It’s brilliant!
Arguably violating the law
For his 45th birthday, Josee surprises Jim with a threesome. During this threesome, consent is procured for “back door entrance”. Under section 159.3(a) of the Criminal Code, at least two of the involved parties are liable to imprisonment for a term not to exceed 10 years.
Both the copyright example and the [not entirely unlikely] birthday example are nearly unenforceable. Ridiculous laws abound in Canada – like the traffic example above, it comes down to enforceability.
If you’re angry about the bill, rally Canadians together to not buy music or movies for a year. Power lies in the hands of the buyer here. Don’t forget that.
Exploder
unfortunately, if we stop buying all media (like I have for the last year), then the content industries blame the drop in sales on us all being dirty pirates. We can’t even protest these shits without supporting their lies.
Well, the truth is, I’m broke, and I’d rather drive somewhere (gas grass or tunes…). I just don’t buy $20 discs or rent $5 movies all the time any more.
Then comes the part that makes some of their contentions true : with the content industries having become more agressive and abusive than ever, I refuse to give them one red hot cent of any money I control. Fuck them very much, I will not fund their WAR against my rights.
So I steal any and everything I bloody well feel like stealing. Sure I have bought a couple of independant CD’s in the last several YEARS, ordered from the artists online, I want to support them. But EVERYTHING ELSE is PIRACY TIME!
With our lame politicians bowing to industry lobbyists, do you really want to help fund their cause? I won’t. Sadly, our best remedy fuels their argument against us, or pushes us to make them true.
I agree that the real danger of C-61 is is pan-criminalisation of Canadians. This is our govt. handing the keys to control of our public internet, over to the slavers who want us to keep buying them yaghts and penthouses and multiple summer mansions. They mean to keep us in line, and we must fight back hard.
C-61
Well lets call a general election get the Liberals out of power and call open season on the surviving ones.
ipod parts
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