Canadian Government Has Consulted on Copyright but Won't Consider How Its Law Will Be Enforced |
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Thursday February 09, 2012
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During yesterday's debate, several Conservative MPs emphasized that the copyright bill is one of the most consulted pieces of legislation in recent memory. For example, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore stated "this is my 12th year as a member of Parliament and I can tell her that except for the Liberal government's Bill C-2, the response to 9/11, this legislation will have had more consideration at a stand-alone legislative committee and parliamentary and public consideration with all of the tens of thousands of submissions we received from Canadians in person and in writing and the consultations we did across the country before we drafted the bill." The government is right when it says there has been wide consultation (a recap of the 2009 copyright consultation here). The question is whether it has taken the public comments into account and conducted a full analysis of the implications of its current proposal. There is reason to believe that it has not. Q. Liberal MP Geoff Regan said during debate of Bill C-11 that “government members have apparently been saying that it would be okay to break the new law and to circumvent digital locks. The member for Calgary Centre wrote: ‘If a digital lock is broken for personal use, it is not realistic that the creator would choose to file a lawsuit against the consumer, due to legal fees and time involved.’ In other words, he is suggesting not to worry about this, that the law can be broken and nothing would happen, that really we are encouraging consumers to break the law. What does that say about the Conservatives’ position, that they are telling Canadians to break this law that they have not passed yet?” What’s your response? A. “Like any country, Canada has laws that all citizens must respect and obey. Bill C-11 sets out the exclusive rights of creators, including musicians, with respect to their artistic creations. Enforcing these rights in a given instance, however, is a private legal matter on which the government cannot speculate.” While governments often refrain from commenting on active litigation that is before the courts, they must surely anticipate the likely effects of their legislative proposals. Indeed, that is precisely what the government is doing when it repeatedly claims (as it did yesterday) that the bill "make Canada an attractive location for creators, innovators and investors." In order to determine whether the digital lock rules found in Bill C-11 strike the right balance the government must speculate - typically described as anticipate or project - how it will be enforced. The overwhelming opposition to the current draft - which includes the opposition parties, business groups, retailers, artists groups, consumers, education associations, and thousands of Canadians - is based on analysis about how the rules as drafted will be enforced. After months of debate, there is no longer any question that the current draft goes far beyond international requirements. There is no question that the 2009 copyright consultation came out strongly against the approach in the current draft and there is no doubt that the majority of what the Bill C-32 committee heard was similarly critical of the digital lock rules. In recent days, the government has heard from over 50,000 Canadians repeating their concern with the proposed approach. If Paradis and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore have not speculated on how their digital lock rules could enforced, perhaps it is because they don't need to. They know - or ought to know - that the following scenarios are some of the possible outcomes:
This is precisely the kind of "speculation" that many groups have conducted in reaching the conclusion that the Bill C-11 digital lock rules do not strike the right balance. The proposed solution from virtually all the critics is not to dismiss legal protection for digital locks, but rather link protection to copyright infringement. That approach would solve all of the above scenarios. If enacted in its current form, the law will have an impact on the legitimate activities of millions and attempts to falsely assuage Canadians that these provisions are mostly innocuous is simply inaccurate. Comments (20)
Ki
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... Good analysis. I expect it to be ignored or outright written off as propaganda by some, but there's no reason for the current way the TPM rules are written to protect copyright. And I have yet to here a satisfactory answer as to why they must be this way. And it's nice to see that our government is not looking out for the rights of Canadians by not properly evaluating the effect of this new law on us. Totally makes their point of view seem much more valid. |
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Other examples Here is one: -Government issues a contract to a world class signature architect who maintains the copyright of the design. Although the government requires an irrevocable licience of copyright the design is created in a modeling software with digital lock provisions. The government must pay the architect to deliver an un-locked version (as an unlocked one is out of contract) or be guilty of breaking the lock. -A building owner buys a building management system that liciences the drivers in a way that only the original installer can update them (from an equipment change or upgrade). The owner being frustrated by the monopolistic relationship with the vendor hacks the control system to make it open to any vendor. The system had digital locks on each node (thousands of nodes in the system), with the statutory damages provision for each 'commercial' infringement puts the damages in the millions. The building owner settles with the vendor and looses all savings from going open source. |
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Next Canadian Election I look forward to sitting at the voting booth all night while defacing by ballot... if this bill get's passed. I might leave work to show up early. |
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... One would hope the government would consider the public sentiment afforded by the push back from SOPA. While C-11 is not fully analogous to SOPA, it is obvious that the wish of increasing restrictions on consumers by the copyright industry is not something people willing to bear. Canadians generally are not a very outspoken bunch, but if this law passes as is (or worse), coupled with the reluctance of the government to enforce these provisions, then copyright as a concept will just take another blow on the way to obscurity. |
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Staying The Same Funny I found my way to this document after reading a 2010 article of yours about the lack of transparency and public knowledge in a brewing copyright bill of that time. How long will people stand for this? |
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Why not ask me! There must be an end to rights group driven legislation. Their voices need to be muted and copyright legislation needs to be opened up to broad, democratic participation. See the blog at WhyNotAskMe.org |
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Locks on devices worse than locks on content.. Much of the harm discuss involve locks on content, but I believe the greater harm comes from the locks on devices. http://c11.ca/petition/ict Once you allow someone other than the owner to have the keys, it is impossible to list out all the different types of abuses that are possible. Obviously the entity with the keys has the ability to violate the privacy and other security of the individual who is using the device. I find it interesting that a government that has supporters uncomfortable with the mere registration of long guns is demonstrating such little respect for the legitimate property interests of technology owners. |
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SOPA So, they haven't added the SOPA amendments yet, right? After the pushback from SOPA, what do you guys think the likely-hood is that they will actually add those amendments now, given that a) they added a time limit and b) SOPA caused huge public outcry. I get the feeling they might be trying to speed it up to prevent more amendments (and the kitchen sink), but I don't know much about the whole process. |
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... Personally I think the chances of SOPA like things being added is small. But that doesn't mean we should stop hammering them about the current bill either due to the TPM protections. |
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Another one. You buy a Windows 8 ARM device and must break the secure boot in order to install something else. |
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all region DVD players Will C-11 make it illegal to purchase or import all region DVD players? When I read the proposed definition of circumvention in Section 41 of Bill C-11, I assume that means that all region DVD players won't be legal if C-11 passes with the current language. Is that a reasonable interpretation? |
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Matrix EXT. - EUROPEAN STREET. MANY PROTESTERS HOLDING ANTI-ACTA SIGNS WALKING SHOUTING CHANTS Agent Smith: You hear that Mr. Harper?... That is the sound of inevitability... It is the sound of copyright's death... |
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... Rob: Yes. C-11 is extremely likely to make importing any all-region dvd players into Canada illegal, as well as outlawing the manufacturing or selling of such players here, since they can be used to circumvent technological protection measures that the publisher placed on the work to prevent unauthorized copying, which the bill specifically prohibits, and the narrow set of exemptions does not include personal or private use (the exemptions that do exist seem to be there to cover edge-cases that could easily arise with regards to security or safety, both personal and public). That said, there will probably be a black market for such all-region players, but, obviously, one will have to still break the law to get them. |
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... Question: If I transcribe the content (part or whole) of a digitally-locked video, can this be equated to breaking the lock (hence, a crime)? |
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Thought Digital files are just one large number. If someone were to create a Hex2Dec program, where the entire file is transcribed to an ASCII text, containing just one number (comma separated) e.g.: FFAF23B5A319 -> 281,127,683,466,009 What is important is that the whole file is nothing more but a human-readable integer. Would distributing the file number to someone else be copyright infringement? Would the receiver running Dec2Hex, reconstructing the original file, be committing copyright infringement? Same for the Hex2DecCr / Dec2HexCr pair (Cr = Crypt) where a simple form of 'encryption' is used; every 2nd digit is transposed by 1 (9 becomes 0) e.g. 281,127,683,466,009 -> 291,228,693,567,019 PS: I just realized what the so-called "number stations" on the shortwave radio band were; they were early p2p networks between intelligence agencies had the computer equipment and swapped digital music files that way! |
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retired I'm a senior Canadian citizen behaved myself worked hard. i stream movies. never downloaded anything. during winter I'm housebound. I'm trying to look at the big picture where this could take us.i just want my Internet which i believe is my right.seems we are moving backwards on this. i don't want our children to leave us in a worse off world. I'll be out there protesting. |
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... @Byte: "I just realized what the so-called "number stations" on the shortwave radio band were". LOL. Now let's put it in reverse. If people start trading encrypted zip files, would any attempts by RIAA/MPIA to decrypt those files be infringements of the TPM provisions in C-11? |
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retired now I'm gonna watch the bfta awards on bbc1. i don't have a license and can't buy one. and if it's taken away from me? |
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respond this topic That is good that people are able to get the personal loans moreover, that opens new opportunities. |
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I have a sinki9ng feeling... Bill C-3O is designed to help lay charges of "criminal copyright infringement" against prolific fileshares, regarless of if they make a profit or not. It will become akin to pot growing, where on plant is not a big deal, but with 7 you face serious trafficing charges. For criminal copyright infringement, a file shared between freinds won't meet the threshold. However, if hundreds download the file, you will face serious charges that involve longer jail-time than killing someone. Within weeks of passage of Bill C-30, every major ISP will be requested to save logs for such fishing expeditions. |
We want to enhance competition and investment in this country, and this is why we adopted this policy back in 2008 for the AWS spectrum. Let me say that the price went down by an average of 11% since then, and we will continue this way with the 700 megahertz spectrum. We launched consultation with the industry to make sure that we enhance competition and provide better choice and better rates for our consumers.
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