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Bill C-11 Enters Final House Debate With Green Party & Bloc Amendments

Bill C-11, the copyright reform bill, is scheduled for debate today, with a long list of proposed amendments from the Green Party’s Elizabeth May and from Bloc MP André Bellavance.  Given the government’s previous rejection of NDP and Liberal amendments, there is little reason to believe any of these proposals with garner support. That said, May’s proposals offer sensible changes to many of the most criticized elements of the bill, particularly the digital lock rules. Her proposals include:

  • linking circumvention to copyright infringement
  • creating a new notice requirement for the inclusion of digital locks
  • creating a new qualified circumventer system, similar to that found in New Zealand
  • adding a new digital lock exception to protect minors
  • removing the digital lock restrictions for time shifting and backup copies
  • adding a system to allow the Copyright Board to create new digital lock exceptions
  • removing the requirement that students destroy lesson materials under a new exception within 30 days of the course concludes
  • removing the requirement for schools to use digital locks to stop further communication of lessons subject to a new exception
  • removing the requirement that libraries take measures to ensure digital inter-library loans cannot be used for more than five business days

A previous May proposal to create new limits to education fair dealing has been dropped, though she is proposing giving the Governor in Council the power to create regulations to define “education” for the purposes of fair dealing.

18 Comments

  1. Anonymous says:

    The difference between principle and practice
    In principle this plan looks workable to all of these scholars, lawyers, politicians and business people, who, lets face it, aren’t young anymore, don’t use the black market, and are all invested in the rule of law. BUT:

    1-Young people tie their “identities” to the culture they repost on their blogs for their friends to see, you can’t even create “new” culture without infringing a lot of the time.
    Young people will kill themselves or others before they give up their “identities”.

    2-Some courts are recognizing that an IP address is not a person. Anonymously accessible wi-fi is everywhere. Millions of kids have fake facebook profiles because they are not old enough to get real ones.
    Now you get jail time for writing c**t. Point is there is so much confusion and sheer stupidity about this EVEN AMONG THOSE IN POWER. All this will do is cause even more young people to jailbreak and root their tablets and become anonymous online.

    3-There is already an undergound economy for drugs, it’s BC’s biggest economy, by the way.
    Dealers use anonymous cell phones and even advertise on craigslist. DO WE REALLY WANT TO PUSH ALL OF OUR YOUNG PEOPLE UNDERGROUND, JUST BECAUSE A FEW SCHOLARS TELL US IT SHOULD WORK, IN PRINCIPLE?!?

  2. May’s suggested amendments are all common sense adjustments to an unbalanced bill, but the powers that be must protect their castles. It will be a slow move forward but eventually the corporate side will come in line with public expectations. The people that have, hate change … those without embrace it.

  3. ..
    Final crap bill and not the last to be past to ruin what use to be why Canada was a good place to live. THANKS HARPER!


  4. There is no reason to believe this government with cede to common sense now. It has pushed aside common sense and public opinion all along. This is 3rd reading…nothing more than a formality, do any major amendments ever get implemented on 3rd reading? I think they plan to introduce proper amendments to this bill later in their tenure as we get closer to another federal election.

    They can protect their castles with huge guns such as C-11 and C-30, but the foundation for that protection is weak and will eventually collapse the castle.

    Again, I think the best we can hope for is a constitutional challenge to the bill. It’s already well established that it impinges upon provincial jurisdiction of property rights.

  5. fedupofcontrol freaks says:

    who cares
    bottom line is all of this will be shot down bt the supreme court.the conservative govenment according to current polls is the most hated government in the history of Canada. Canadians are afraid and tired of lies, deceipt and Harpers control issues. all we can do is look forward to a future truly Canadian government that speaks for and with us!

  6. Rob McNicol says:

    This is the most backward arcane implementation of a bill if every there was one. We are not in the middle ages anymore. Quit pandering to the record and film industry that use an outdated model and expect to remain in control. It’s a new dawn in democracy and the internet is the key to keeping it just. Nothing here to help new artists, talent or anyone with creative free will looking to grow and move ahead.

  7. Dictatorship
    If Harper had his own way, there would be no such thing as the House of Commons. And that day, may very well come into existence. Harper wants to have, supreme dictatorship over Canada.

    I have lost count, of all the law suits against Harper. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, is said to summons Harper for war crimes and crimes against humanity. A suit regarding the robo-calls. Helena Guergis, the War Veterans. These are some of the law suits against Harper.

    Harper is a Reformer of his, Northern Foundation Party from 1989. They said, the skinheads organized that party.

    This country, is no longer Canada. Our Canada used to have, Democracy, Civil rights and Liberties and justice for all.

    Make no mistake, Harper is the worst and most evil P.M. in the recorded history of Canada.

    Harper started out, with a $13 billion dollar surplus. The thieving of our tax dollars, to give to the wealthiest corporations in the world. Huge tax reductions for the wealthy. Harper is also the worst economist, we have ever had.

    It doesn’t matter what crimes Harper has been caught in, nothing is ever done about it. Harper is the only one, being investigated for election fraud and the robo-calls. There are records showing, the robo-calls all lead to Harper. That is a drop in the bucket, of Harper’s dirty tactics, dirty politics. The opposition party’s are proving futile.

  8. end user says:

    >creating a new notice requirement for the inclusion of digital locks

    This would be nice. A big fat sticker on the DVD, CD, GAME, BR disc stating you don’t own the product but merely leasing it. Would be much easier to explain to the layman why not to buy the products with those stickers on them.

  9. Stickers
    To me a sticker is a no-brainer, much like the stickers on music back in the 80’s and 90’s that told you about explicit lyrics or if content was censored. More says the consumer has the right to choose. Stickers would ultimately show just how limited that right is, so the corporate and US task masters Harper looks up to would never allow it.


  10. Moore, not “More”

  11. >>>
    I was watching some of the debate and these guys can’t even say digital right or MP3 he said M3. LOL Also the CONS every time they speak about it, it makes me so damn mad that they have no clue and don’t listen at all!

  12. Debate
    I was also watching the debate and one of the CONs said NPD wants to be on a majority and they will never, be not exactly in those words though. Man those CONS are really something eh

  13. What will happen to us?
    Will using the internet land us in jail? What’s going to happen to our online art and culture?

    Is this really the end of the internet in Canada?

  14. //
    I can tell you this much it won’t stop me from downloading stuff they can go screw themselves!

  15. Common sense
    Those amendments would be enough to make me accepting of the bill, however since they are common sense they are likely to be ignored.

  16. What Should Happen
    Liberals, NDP, BQ, and Greens all want amendments to C-11, but the Great Dictator (what else to call an absolute ruler with less than 40% popular support) can just shove it aside.

    All four should get together one afternoon, decide on what they commonly agree to, draw up a public statement that as soon as is feasible, a new bill will be introduced that makes the agreed upon changes, and all four commit now to supporting it.

    Why? So that any interested parties know in advance that this digital lock craziness is only temporary, and that they shouldn’t base any business decisions on having the digital lock circumvention rules in place “as is”.

    Because, believe me, once in place it will be the #1 argument on why it can’t be changed back. So it’s better to let everyone know now… IF those changes are REALLY important to Lib/NDP/Bloc/Greens, that is.

  17. Irony
    The irony of the situation will be in the results. When it becomes clear that C-11 does NOTHING to curb downloading of music and movies and does NOTHING to stop people from photocopying books, and effectively doesn’t result in any tangible change at all. The US DMCA may have given downloading a cold shower for a year or two but it’s effectively done nothing to stop the flow of data. C-11 won’t change that either. The irony comes from the fact that idiots like the RIAA and MPAA won’t see any changes and still lump Canada in with the rest of the evil piracy countries of the world.

  18. Her recommendations are, IMO, reasonable, but the simple reality is that these proposals have already been presented to the conservatives more than once before, and have always been rejected. Of these recommendations I believe the most important are #5 and what I expect the intention behind #1 to be (I am not partial to that wording, because the conservatives could sneakily meet that requirement simply by explicitly linking *ANY* unauthorized circumvention to infringement, whether copyright infringement otherwise happened or not).