With only two weeks left in the House of Commons calendar until the summer recess (technically the House could sit for an additional two weeks but few expect that to happen), Industry Minister Jim Prentice is likely to introduce his new copyright bill next week or during the first week […]
Post Tagged with: "device shifting"
Prentice’s DMCA Deception
With only two weeks left in the House of Commons calendar until the summer recess (technically the House could sit for an additional two weeks but few expect that to happen), Industry Minister Jim Prentice is likely to introduce his new copyright bill next week or during the first week […]
New Zealand’s Digital Copyright Law Demonstrates Anti-Circumvention Flexibility
New Zealand passed its digital copyright law this week, drawing the ire of the technology community and the blogosphere. While the bill isn't great, many of the provisions are far better than what Industry Minister Jim Prentice may have in mind for Canada including format and time shifting provisions as well as anti-circumvention provisions that are more flexible than those found in the DMCA. In fact, the anti-circumvention provisions are arguably the best of any country, since they are compliant with WIPO, limited in scope, and seek to preserve fair dealing rights.
On the anti-circumvention front, there are several things to note:
- the technological protection measures (TPMs) expressly exclude access controls such as region coding. In other words, the anti-circumvention provisions do not apply to devices that "only controls access to a work for non-infringing purposes."
- the legislation targets anti-circumvention devices, but excludes those devices that have something more than "limited commercially significant applications" other than circumventing a TPM.
- the law prohibits making, selling, distributing, advertising, or offering a circumvention device if the person "knows or has reason to believe that it will, or is likely to, be used to infringe copyright." The inclusion of a knowledge requirement creates an additional safeguard against overbroad application of the provision.
- most importantly, the law clearly permits circumvention for "permitted acts", which effectively preserves fair dealing rights (the statute also specifies the right to circumvent for encryption research). More impressive, the law includes a system to facilitate circumvention for permitted acts in the event that users are unable to circumvent a TPM themselves. In such cases, the law allows a "qualified person", which includes librarians, archivists, and educational institutions, to circumvent a TPM on behalf of a user (the user can also ask the copyright owner to unlock the work for them).
All I Want For Christmas is a Legal TiVo
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, The Tyee version, Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) focuses on the fact that there is nothing under Canadian law that clearly permits home recording of television programs. I note that TiVo claims that its service is available in Canada, yet few retailers carry the product. In fact, notwithstanding the growing popularity of PVRs and the ubiquity of VCRs – the CRTC estimates that 700,000 Canadian households own a PVR and Statistics Canada reports that over 10 million households have video cassette recorders (VCR) – the absence of the TiVo is not the only difference between the U.S. and Canadian markets. In the U.S., using TiVos and VCRs is clearly legal. In Canada, it is not.
While it may come as news to many Canadians that they infringe copyright on daily basis, those involved in the industry are well aware of this state of the law. The law includes a series of copying exceptions that cover research, private study, and criticism, however, there is nothing that clearly permits home recording of television programs. Indeed, the delayed introduction of the TiVo or the Slingbox, another popular product that allows consumers to transfer their television programs over the Internet to their computer and which only entered the Canadian market last year, may stem in part from fears about the legal climate.
Ottawa has regularly introduced legislation demanded by lobby groups (new laws against camcording in movie theatres and Internet rebroadcasting have been passed over the past five years), yet nothing has been done to address the legality of commonplace, non-commercial activities that affects millions of Canadians.
All I Want For Christmas is a Legal TiVo
Appeared in the Toronto Star on November 19, 2007 as All I Want For Christmas Is a Legal TiVo Appeared in the Tyee on November 20, 2007 as Slaves to TV Ads? Michael Powell, the former Chair of the United States Federal Communications Commission, received his first TiVo, a popular […]