Post Tagged with: "digital locks"

Where The Parties Stand on C-32’s Digital Lock Provisions

Yesterday’s opening debate on Bill C-32 gave each party the opportunity to outline its specific concerns and perspectives on the copyright reform proposal. The comments from the lead critic on digital locks provides a good sense of the broad opposition to the current C-32 approach to the issue:

Conservatives (Clement)

During the consultations, creators told us they needed new rights and protections to succeed in a digital environment, and so the bill before us implements those kinds of rights and protections of the WIPO Internet Treaties and paves the way for a future decision on ratification.

(Moore)

Copyright holders told us that their 21st-century business model depends on strong technological protection measures. And we listened: Bill C-32 contains protection measures such as digital locks to protect against piracy and to allow creators to choose how they wish to protect their works.

November 3, 2010 — 93 comments — News

The Bill C-32 Debate Begins: Locks, Levies & Misinformation on Fair Dealing

Second reading of Bill C-32 kicked off yesterday with hours of discussion from MPs from all political parties. Six months after the bill was first introduced, the debate offered the first opportunity to get a sense of where the various parties stand and which issues will be most contentious when the committee tasked with review the bill begins hearings within the next couple of weeks (coverage from PostMedia).

The issue at the top of the Liberal and NDP agenda is digital locks. Both parties (along with the Bloc) expressed concern with the digital lock approach in Bill C-32. The Liberals repeatedly emphasized the need for consumers to have the right to circumvent for format shifting, backup copies, and other consumer activities. This would require changes to both the consumer provisions and the general anti-circumvention provision, since both create barriers to these basic consumer activities. Given that the U.S. now allows circumvention of DVDs for some non-commercial purposes, this seems like a reasonable compromise. The NDP placed the spotlight on the impact of locks on education and teaching, describing the exceptions that require destruction of teaching materials 30 days after the end of the course as a digital book burning.

November 3, 2010 — 18 comments — News

Against Bill C-32: Creator Groups Stake Out Strong Anti-Copyright Bill Position

Update 11/1: I have received a request to remove the link to the ACTRA document on the grounds that it was posted prematurely. I have been advised that there is not yet consensus among all groups listed in the document on the various C-32 issues.

When Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore told an IP conference last June that only two groups of radical extremists were opposed to Bill C-32, most assumed that he had user groups in mind. Yet as various groups begin to publicly make their positions known, few have been as critical as a creator coalition that includes ACTRA, a writers’ coalition, visual arts coalition, and Quebec artists groups. In a backgrounder on the bill, those groups oppose nearly all the major reform elements of Bill C-32, with the notable exception of digital locks (on which they remain silent).

Just how broad is the opposition? The position paper stakes out the following positions:

October 28, 2010 — 78 comments — News

Angus Files Petition, Comments on C-32 & Digital Locks

This week NDP MP Charlie Angus used debate on the anti-spam bill to sound off on copyright reform and Bill C-32: the present government’s plan with digital locks would actually lock down content unnecessarily and criminalize individuals who have legal rights, for example, librarians or blind people who need to […]

October 22, 2010 — 7 comments — News

In Praise of Copying

The National Post has an interesting article on the benefits of copying and the concerns associated with Bill C-32. The article includes a discussion of York University’s Marcus Boon’s book on copying (available for free download) and Ian Kerr’s exceptional article on digital locks in From “Radical Extremism” to “Balanced […]

October 18, 2010 — 8 comments — News