Post Tagged with: "copyright for canadians"

Poilievre’s C-61 Response

I've posted responses to C-61 letters from MPs representing the major parties (Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Bloc) in the past, but several people forwarded the latest letter from Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre, an Ottawa-area MP, is best known for being the primary responder in the House of Commons to the election funding issue as well as for having had to apologize for remarks tied to the native school apology. Most of Poilievre's response simply repeats the usual Conservative lines on C-61, some of which are misleading (ie. he says "our reform will also permit consumers to copy music onto devices such as MP3 players, and copy books, newspapers, videos and photos into different formats. All of this is illegal under the current copyright legislation." It is inaccurate to state that all of this is illegal today since fair dealing may cover some of this copying and the video copying must be VHS, not DVD).

More problematic is the final paragraph that makes the case for C-61 to his constituents:

July 25, 2008 — 24 comments — News

Poilievre’s C-61 Response

More problematic is the final paragraph that makes the case for C-61 to his constituents:

July 25, 2008 — Comments are Disabled — Stop CDMCA

61 Reforms to C-61, Day 24: TPMs – No Exclusion of Non-Infringing Access

Bill C-61's anti-circumvention approach ranks among the broadest of any statute in the world. One area where it is particularly (over)broad is in its failure to exclude non-infringing access. Under the current bill, Section 41.1(1) simply states that "no person shall circumvent a technological measure within the meaning of paragraph (a) of the definition of 'technological measure'". Technological measure "means any effective technology, device or component that, in the ordinary course of its operation controls access to a work. . . "

By using such a broad approach – any circumvention of any effective access control – the statute prohibits the circumvention of TPMs that have absolutely nothing to do with infringing copying. The most obvious example of this comes from the region coding found on DVDs and many computer games. Many DVDs include Macrovision (designed to stop copying a DVD to VHS), Content Scramble System or CSS (the subject of important litigation involving DeCSS, a software program created to allow Linux users to play DVDs since they were otherwise unable to do so due to CSS), and region coding.

July 24, 2008 — 6 comments — News

61 Reforms to C-61, Day 23: TPMs – No Exception for Obsolete or Broken Digital Locks

The inclusion of a right to circumvent in the event that the TPM breaks or becomes obsolete should be relatively uncontroversial. The U.S. Registrar of Copyrights has included a specific exception that addresses this situation since 2000. The exception reflects the recognition that the continual evolution of technology places the […]

July 23, 2008 — 5 comments — News

61 Reforms to C-61, Day 22: TPMs – No Exception for Filtering Programs

As part of the U.S. Copyright Office's DMCA rulemaking procedure (under which it identifies non-infringing uses that are hampered by the DMCA), the Office has twice issued an exemption for circumvention of filtering software programs in order to identify the list of sites included within the program. Filtering programs can […]

July 22, 2008 — 3 comments — News