The new law should not allow Digital Rights Management technologies to prevent fair use of published work.
Fair Dealing by Giulia Forsythe (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dRkXwP
The new law should not allow Digital Rights Management technologies to prevent fair use of published work.
On the Bill C-11 front, the CACN wants to gut many of the balancing provisions, including limiting the scope of the already overly restrictive digital lock exceptions, dropping the ISP notice-and-notice approach in favour of a graduated response that could lead to terminating Internet service for individual users, and removing the distinction between commercial and non-commercial infringement for statutory damages despite the fact that Canada is one of the few countries to have such damage provisions (which would pave the way for more Hurt Locker style lawsuits against individuals).
Napster Canada has advised its customers that it is shutting down operations effective December 16, 2011. The move comes weeks after Napster US became part of Rhapsody and users were assured that Canadians would be unaffected by the move. The company warns users to create backup copies of downloaded music […]
Provide an exception that permits the circumvention of digital rights management and technological measures for purposes of creating an alternate format. Permit the use of circumvention devices for the purposes of preparing materials for alternate format production.
Consumers enjoy certain rights to use content without infringing copyright. The presence of technological measures doesn’t change that, and neither should anti-circumvention laws. Consumers must be able to circumvent technological measures, like DRM, providing that their access to the underlying content does not infringe copyright. These consumer rights fulfil important public policy goals, preserving consumer welfare, free speech, and innovation. The use of technological measures already threatens these values. Anti-circumvention laws shouldn’t statutorily undermine them as well.