News

Catching Up on the Canadian DMCA Coverage

The amount of coverage and discussion about the Canadian DMCA has simply been overwhelming.  You can view the actual introduction of the bill, local TV coverage, and national TV coverage.  You can read mainstream media coverage (Globe, National Post, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, CBC), wire services coverage (UPI, Reuters, CEP), online media coverage (Ars Technica, Techdirt), newspaper editorials (Toronto Star supports the introduction), and commentary pieces (mine, Terence Corcoran's in the National Post).  You can read Industry Minister Jim Prentice's quick reference in the House of Commons to support from copyright lobby groups and the support itself (music industry, BSA, ACTRA).  You can read the comments from groups that oppose the bill (Canadian Library Association, Canadian Music Creators Coalition, Documentary Organization of CanadaCIPPIC, Appropriation Art). You can read commentary from profs (Trosow, Murray) and bloggers (Ingram, Doctorow, McOrmond, CopyrightWatch) and screenwriters (Hey Writer Boy).  You can also read the bill.

And when you're done reading, start speaking out.

6 Comments

  1. coverage in Québec
    Unfortunately, you can’t say the same in Québec. Most reports from the French speaking press weren’t critical of the bill at all. They were rather praising it as a long awaited update of our archaic copyright law, as great tools to protect “our artits and creators”.

    radio-canada’s coverage in yesterday’s Telejournal is a pity.
    [ link ]
    (sorry, no link for the report itself, just the whole show)

  2. Colin McInnes says:

    breaking DRM worse than stealing?
    The CLA has a good quote:

    “There is also a clear problem with criminalizing the circumvention of DRM. For a teenager, the criminal risk involved in shoplifting a CD would be safer rather than circumventing DRM on a CD they purchased to put it on their IPod.”

  3. justanexer says:

    WTF!
    Wow. Those for this copyright reform really don’t want consumers to have any rights what so ever. How did the consumer become the enemy to these groups, i’ve paid 10’s of thousands of dollars for the legal cd’s,dvd’s,cable,etc that i’ve collected over the years.

    I can’t believe what i read on ACTRA’s website, “…We would be deeply concerned if the Bill allows people to copy artists’ work onto media devices like iPODS without compensation for creators…”

    If i have know rights to the content that i’ve purchased and i’m an ‘infringing pirate’ if i rip a dvd to my ipod…. then so be it, i will move to the pirate side…..atleast there i will feel that i have control over the content. And according to this new bill i’d rather take the $500 fine for downloading over the $20000 fine for ripping a dvd.

  4. S Halayka says:

    Levy on Cds
    So, I thought the levy we pay on media was to “offset” the money lost due to piracy. So it was perfectly OK to copy CDs since we were paying the government off?

    Strange.

  5. braindrain says:

    I laughed…..
    The national TV coverage made me laugh so hard even tho this is such a huge issue. I know the woman speaks french and if i had to speak that i would sound even more retarded. She looked stunned pretty much every time she heard youtube/anything that had to do with the internet(most likely had no idea how it works or half the stuff on the internet works) and had no idea how to coherently make any real points so why was she even speaking? Other then the fact that Prentice had ran out of his talking points which pretty much contradict everything he says i can’t figure it out…

    20000 for uploading to youtube when they already take down stuff when there is a dmca notice sent to them is retarded and shows how little they know about the workings of well anything it seems. Speaking of which the only industry that is retarded enough to sue its customer base is the RIAA and they pretty much only go after universities(suing kids and old/dead people turned out a bad idea for a money grab) now cause thats where the money is(unless your Harvard and they know better then to screw with that). And they do not even give artists the the money anyway so what is the point?

    As for Prentice he spews so much BS/BADSPIN and has no idea of the real implications how technology/his bill will effect Canada. It is like listening to a bush speech and knowing he has no idea and is just reading what his corporate masters spin team put together…

    Lets not forget that the only way to truly gather reliable intelligence is with deep packet inspection which could easily allow a skilled hacker to get at your person information(credit cards etc). Do they even have an idea how wi fi works and how it exposes anyone how cannot 100% secure there signal? I highly doubt it just like his capacity to be minister of anything let alone regulate the internet when the internet is what we make it not what he/his corporate interests wants it to be…

  6. printing the bill
    Can anybody point me to an English-only copy of the bill? So far I’ve only been able to find the official gov’t version. I don’t have a problem with La Belle Langue but I’d like to print the bill off, read it, and distribute it to a few people(hopefully that’s not illegal, under the bill) and it’d be nice to cut the amount of paper needed in half.

    Merci buckets