Post Tagged with: "esac"

The False Link Between C-11’s Digital Lock Rules and Video Game Industry Jobs

Debate resumed on Monday on the copyright bill with the opposition parties citing correspondence from Canadian after Canadian concerned with the digital lock rules found in Bill C-11. Thousands of Canadians have called on the government to adopt compromise legislation that provides legal protection for digital locks but ensures that the copyright balance is retained by linking circumvention to copyright infringement. As I have chronicled in more than 50 daily digital lock postings, this view is shared by business groups, consumer organizations, cultural groups (including the leading performers and publisher associations), education and library representatives, as well as Canada’s leading consumer organization. There is no serious debate about where the overwhelming majority of Canadians that have spoken out on the bill stand.

The task of defending the bill has lately fallen to Paul Calandra, the Parliamentary Secretary for Canadian Heritage. As I posted last month, Calandra has focused on the claim that there is no jurisdiction “where digital locks have been used and the actual availability of content has been reduced.” The argument is a complete red herring as no one has argued C-11 will reduce the availability of content but rather that it will eliminate many of the rights consumers obtain when they purchase that content.

Calandra has now also turned to the video game industry as a major source of support. Given the fact that writers, performers, publishers, musicians, documentary film makers, and artists have all called for greater balance on digital locks, the government has been left with fewer and fewer creative industries that support its position. On Monday, Calandra repeatedly referenced the video game industry and the prospect of lost jobs as a reason to support restrictive digital lock rules. For example:

I wonder if the member and her party opposite are talking about putting an end to the video gaming industry in this country with weak TPM measures.

Later, Calandara asked an MP:

Could he explain to the House how, in the absence of effective technical protection measures, that industry could continue to flourish in the province of Quebec?

Calandra regularly referenced the 14,000 jobs in the industry and suggested that they would be put at risk with “weak” TPM measures. Given the focus, it is important to examine the evidence that supports claims that jobs are at risk.

December 14, 2011 — 20 comments — News

Entertainment Software Assoc: We’re For Tech Neutral Copyright (Except When We’re Against It)

One of the most frequently cited concerns with Bill C-11’s digital lock rules is that they create a two-tier legal framework that is technologically non-neutral. Where content does not have a lock or is in non-digital form, the usual copyright balance applies including fair dealing and consumer exceptions. However, with Bill C-11, once there is a digital lock included with the content, the balance disappears since the fair dealing and consumer exceptions can be overriden. A description of the situation:

The Bill also favours digital lock business models for the sale and delivery of content over unlocked means of dissemination. In the traditional model, copyright holders control the exclusive right to reproduce content onto CDs or DVDs. Once an unlocked copy is created, rights holders cannot control the application of copyright exceptions such as fair dealing. But the Bill creates a different situation simply because a copy of digital content is delivered with a digital lock. This is an economically inefficient interpretation of an Act that is meant to fairly balance the interests of rights holders and users to further the interests of society as a whole.

While consumer groups have been making this case against technological non-neutral copyright for months (and Charlie Angus raised precisely this point in the House of Commons yesterday expressing concern about a “two-tier set of rights”), the above quote is a slightly modified version of arguments by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, one of the lead proponents of the digital lock rules.

November 25, 2011 — 17 comments — News

Anti-Spam Law in Limbo as Lobby Groups Seek New Exceptions

Last December, the government celebrated passing eight bills into law, including the long-delayed anti-spam bill. Years after a national task force recommended enacting anti-spam legislation, the Canadian bill finally established strict rules for electronic marketing and safeguards against the installation of unwanted software programs on personal computers, all backed by tough multi-million dollar penalties.

Then-Industry Minister Tony Clement promised that the law would “protect Canadian businesses and consumers from harmful and misleading online threats,” but nearly a year later, the law is in limbo, the victim of a fight over regulations that threaten to delay implementation for many more months.

Although support for anti-spam legislation would seemingly be uncontroversial, various business groups mounted a spirited attack against the bill during the legislative process, claiming requirements to obtain user consent before sending commercial email would create new barriers to doing business online. Passing the anti-spam legislation ultimately proved far more difficult than most anticipated with groups seeking to water down tough provisions and greatly expand the list of exceptions to the general rules on obtaining user consent.

Months later, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) reports it is dÃ©jÃ vu all over again as the government works to finalize the regulations for the anti-spam legislation and the same groups make many of the same arguments. A call for comment over the summer from both Industry Canada and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (enforcement of the law is shared by the CRTC, Competition Bureau, and Privacy Commissioner of Canada) generated dozens of responses, most of which begin by congratulating the government on passing anti-spam legislation and then proceeded to urge significant amendments.

November 1, 2011 — 5 comments — Columns

ESAC Says C-32 Needed To Guard Against Video Game Cheating

The Entertainment Software Association of Canada's Danielle LaBossiere Parr published an op-ed in the Calgary Herald supporting the digital lock provisions in C-32 (Heritage Minister James Moore saw fit to tweet the op-ed). The op-ed doesn't contain many surprises – entertainment software is booming in Canada (and has been for years without copyright reform) but the ESAC says without reforms the future of the business is threatened.

There are three claims that demand a response, however.

June 21, 2010 — 39 comments — News