While things have been publicly quiet on the copyright reform front this summer, indications are that the government has been busy, with a copyright bill likely to be introduced this fall. One important voice that has come forward is Telus, Canada’s second largest telecommunications company. In a letter to Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda, the company outlines its top priorities for copyright reform.
Leading the way is fair use, with Telus calling for a "living" fair use model that would expand upon the current fair dealing user right. In particular, Telus states that:
In particular, the Government should ensure Canadians are able to use new technologies to fully enjoy copyrighted materials they have legally obtained or accessed in a manner that does no real measurable harm to copyright owners' legitimate interests. For example, customers of TELUS and other Canadian broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) should be able to use new technologies to record, store and access television programming, for their own private enjoyment, at a time of their choosing ("time-shifting"). Similarly, Canadians should be able to transfer content they own from one device to another for ease and flexibility of access for their private use ("space-shifting").
This is an encouraging development as it broadens the coalition calling for an expanded fair dealing right to a powerful stakeholder and it echoes similar comments from musicians, educators, librarians, and artists. Industry Canada may have focused on ISP liability provisions within the copyright reform bill, but that alone is not good enough. A pillar of the forthcoming bill should be an expansion of fair dealing to allow for greater innovation for business, improved flexibility and appropriate compensation for creators, as well as user rights consistent with the views of the Supreme Court of Canada.
I wonder if TELUS is looking at the need to stimulate a move away from standard broadcast video as the way to disruptively compete against cable. See my blog entry: [ link ]
That might explain their position on Fair Use: the need for them to be able to distribute programming in a non-broadcast mode.
Reform starts at home
It is nice that Telus wants to protect consumers from legislation that would inhibit the fair use of media, I can understand why they would want to protect that too, they make a lot of money from transferring that data on P2P networks using their ADSL lines.
Without the demand for high band width for such downloads, users would be severly reducing their use, and many could probably switch to dial up, which could be supplied by any one of Telus’ competitors.
Regardless of motives, it is beneficial for us anyhow.
Telus does have quite a differnet attitude when it comes to sharing files, when it doesn’t benefit them.
For example, with Telus mobility they provide web browsing services, and you can go to sites where you can tranfser photos from your computer to your phone for free. Unless you use Telus.
If Telus is your service provider you can look, but you can not download pictures or ringtones, games or applications from these sites.
If you want these you must go to Telus’ own sites and pay $3.50 to $7 for each ringtone or game, and if you want your own pictures you have to pay Telus for them.
So, they censor web sites and content, limit the functionality of your network service so that you can not download things for free which Telus offers for sale, even if you have legal rights to that content.
So are their motives pure? Are they just looking out for the consumer, trying to give us unimpeded access to materials we own, or just trying to make sure the chicken keeps laying those golden eggs?
Irony
I guess I should point out the irony here, in case somebody didn’t see it above:
Telus states that “…government should ensure Canadians are able to use new technologies to fully enjoy copyrighted materials they have legally obtained…”, yet prevent people from downloading this material from web sites which do not profit them.
“…customers of TELUS…should be able to use new technologies to record, store and access television programming, for their own private enjoyment, at a time of their choosing (“time-shifting”)” and then Telus restricts the functionality of new technologies so that we can not access or store that data.
Telus is also quoted here as saying “…Canadians should be able to transfer content they own from one device to another for ease and flexibility of access for their private use (“space-shifting”)” and then they actually prevent these tranfers from taking place,by preventing access to free download sites like pix2fone.com, where you can send your photos from PC, and then download them to your phone.
Telus disables this on their network, so you can view the web site, but can not download your own pictures, taken from your own camera.
Mr.
I’m looking for a lawyer who could handle a class action against Telus mobility with a big settlement. The case is about the way telus selling music.
Thank you,
Mr. J. Solhi
email: jsolhi@sympatico.ca
home:(416)866-8429
cell:(416)995-8429
sir
Well, I’m not a lawyer, but i’d be willing to lend my voice to such a cause. make the compaint more general, i think; false advertising (the lies that i was told by the telus rep which convinced me to buy the most expensive non-smart-phone they had, only to find out that 80 percent of those features are either crippled or locked out completely) the use of DRM as a means to keep me from using even my own compositions as ringtones – DRM itself violates the spirit, if not the letter, of copyright; I’m just so disappointed in Telus. They are acting like one of those dinosaur corporations from the last century, trying to make a profit and extend their existence by crushing their customers.
I would NEVER have signed a contract with them if the salesperson had told the truth about the phone. I warn anyone who mentions them to me to stay the hell away unless they want a really expensive paperweight.
telus sucks
I was taken in by telus I also was lied to …Once my contract is up …NO MORE TELUS and we have 3 of them