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Ignatieff on Bill C-32

Digital-Copyright.ca posts a letter from Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff on Bill C-32.  It includes:

we believe that Canadian consumers who have legitimately purchased a CD or a DVD or other product should also have the ability to transfer their purchase onto their iPod or make a personal backup copy on their computer, so long as they are not doing so for the purposes of sale or transfer to others.

9 Comments

  1. Harold Jarche says:

    transfer?
    And why can’t we transfer it to others? We bought it. Aren’t we still paying a copying levy? Libs aren’t much better than the Cons.

  2. I’d say by transfer he means giving a copy away.
    I agree with that. If I want to give the origional away I should be able to, to give a copy away… not so much. A ‘mix tape’ maybe, but full complete copies of movies or albums, no.

  3. @db: but we pay for the right to “take a copy”
    > I’d say by transfer he means giving a copy away.

    Yes, I’d agree with that. But as Harold points out, we pay for (almost) that right currently through the copying levy. AFAIU, the levy allows one to “take a copy” not “give a copy”.

    That is, if I know somebody who has a CD, I can “borrow” it from them and take a copy and then give back the original. Perfectly legal and paid for by the levy charged on the blank CD that I am making the copy to.

    The levy does not allow me, the owner of a CD however to make a copy (even to a levy charged blank CD) and give that to somebody.

    But if what Ignatieff is proposing is that I should not even be allowed to “take a copy”, then that goes counter to what I am being charged for and am paying for on all of the blank media I am paying for, and if that’s what he really wants, then the levy needs to stop being charged for and the flow of money from that to artists needs to stop.

    So, all you artists out there enjoying an income from the levy, either see that dry up, or get behind the consumers’ right to take a copy of your work. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Not that I think you are — all of you anyway.

  4. I think we need a “irregardless of anti-copying protection measures” clarifier attached to that statement. Otherwise it is just stating the same thing as the Conservatives, with the Conservative’s just adding that “you can’t break a digital lock” as a separate item, knowing full well that one cancels out the other.

  5. My understanding…
    …is that they say that once you bought a legal CD or DVD you should be able to use it as you see fit inside your household, including copying it to your mp3 player or computer, as long as your intention is personal use and not distributing copies to other persons outside your household. This sounds OK, but maybe I misread it?

    Nap.

  6. Cake
    They want their cake and eat it too. Thay want all these legislation changes, but surely don’t want to give up the levy. Once the activity the levy is designed to accomodate for becomes illegal, technically it becomes illegal to charge the levy. It becomes money laundering…charging a fee based on an illegal activity. According to the “US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency” money laundering is “any financial transaction which generates an asset or a value as the result of an illegal act”. (Wikipedia) If they’re charging a “private copying levy”, when private copying is illegal, that is the US definition of money laundering.

  7. “If they’re charging a “private copying levy”, when private copying is illegal, that is the US definition of money laundering.”

    Too bad we live in Canada 😉

  8. Almost but not quite.
    Ignatieff almost says what we want to hear, but I too think he needs to clarify if he supports bypassing DRM to exercise those rights if necessary. Until he says so, his position is the same as the CPC.

    I think this could be a wedge issue for the Liberals, if enough Canadians would take the time to care before it is tool late that is 0_o

    I’d be willing to give the Liberals a look if they came up with reasonable IP policies. Someone needs to be concerned about our digital future and it sure isn’t the “Copy-Protection Party of Canada”

  9. RE: Crockett
    “Too bad we live in Canada ;-)”

    Touché