As Canada awaits a new copyright bill that is expected within the next couple of weeks, Israel just passed its own copyright reform package. It neatly avoids anti-circumvention legislation, but inclueds new rights for backup copies, interoperability, consumer rights with photographers, and drops crown copyright.
Israel Amends Copyright Law
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An example of sensible legislation!
Unfortunately, I see little hope that our own government will adopt similar reforms.
What little information I have read about the pending bill leads me to believe, that once again the interests of the music/entertainment industry will be supported, to the detriment of the general public.
It appears that the rights/need/wishes of the average citizen are easily overlooked.
@old bill,
It seems mostly sensible, but I wonder if their parliament demanded that media purchased by the consume be open to conversion from one for to another? That bit about anti-circumvention could really come to bite people in the ass when media providers heavily encrypt their goods, thus preventing fair use.
@James H,
No, there is no requirement in the law that digital media is open to conversion.
I don\’t see any problem with it, because:
1. Fair use is not a legal right on its own, it\’s just an exception to copyright law. It\’s a legal defense against copyright infringement, not something you must always be able to do. Media companies are allowed to sell encrypted content and the market can decide whether that\’s acceptable.
2. Not all local record labels in Israel sell digital tracks, but those that do sell them as high-quality unencrypted MP3s. The local market here skipped the whole DRM mess and went straight where the U.S. market will eventually arrive (I\’m not sure where the Canadian market is). So digital restrictions on content (at least music) are simply not an issue here.