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Delays to Canadian DMCA Could Doom Act

Posted by Zonk on Sat Feb 16, 2008 04:41 PM
from the getting-late-in-the-day dept.
Privacy The Courts Government Media News
Jabbrwokk writes "Michael Geist reports legislation to create a Canadian version of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been delayed again, possibly because of massive public outcry, and possibly even because of opposition from the industry itself. Canada's biggest ISPs have banded together to oppose the proposed new legislation and suggest their own solution, which include allowances for expanded fair dealing, private copying, no liability for ISPs and legislation that concentrates its wrath on commercial pirates instead of penny-ante downloaders and seeders.'"
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Submission: Plans for Canadian DMCA could be doomed by Jabbrwokk (1015725)
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  • Once more ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tomhudson (43916) <hudson@videotQUOTEron.ca minus punct> on Saturday February 16 2008, @04:44PM (#22448048) Journal

    ... look to the north for the "land of the free".

    Imagine, proposing laws that might actually be fair and balanced? What will those crazy Canucks do next?!?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      ... look to the north for the "land of the free".

      Imagine, proposing laws that might actually be fair and balanced? What will those crazy Canucks do next?!?
      Get rid of their Monarchy?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by kpoole55 (1102793)
        The monarchy is only a figurehead. We control our own constitution now. And, it sounds like the government might actually be listening to the people at times other than when an election is due.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by calebt3 (1098475)

          And, it sounds like the government might actually be listening to the people at times other than when an election is due.
          I think I figured out why government is so screwed up. Politicians are basically megaphones. What goes in comes out louder. At election time, good ideas go in, good ideas get spewed back out. After the election, BS from lobbyists goes in, and BS comes back out. Now if only we could make them into voice recorders instead...

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Vectronic (1221470)
        We basically have, the Queen (and/or 'Future King') is a figurehead, and little more...

        The extent of her power is basically just being able to bitch if she wants to, but we dont have to actually listen to her.

        "The Canadian constitution places the Queen as head of state, and all Canadian laws and treaties must be approved by her. In reality, an appointed governor acts as her representative, and for all intents and purposes, decisions made by the Canadian parliament are never opposed. Thus, the Queen exercise
        • If that is the case, then it it even more ridiculous. So instead of having someone in power, you have a "figurehead" that has no power, but gets paid like someone who does.

          Having a powerless figurehead is an idiotic waste.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Vectronic (1221470)
            I Agree, however in this case you are wrong...

            We dont pay the Queen anything, she is simply a Figurehead... consider her the Eagle to the US... you dont pay the Eagle anything, hell you are killing them all... but you still put the damn thing on anything you can find...

            However, we do pay for whatever she needs when she is actually within our Borders, ie: "All Expenses Paid"... transportation, housing, protection, etc, etc.

              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by ls -la (937805)

                We are killing our eagles?

                The population is growing by a large amount, not lowering. It's basically the opposite of what you are saying.
                Now it's growing, but we were the reason they became so endangered in the first place.

              • Re:Once more ... (Score:5, Funny)

                by Rei (128717) on Saturday February 16 2008, @06:30PM (#22448716) Homepage
                Yes, but the Canadians have wisely avoided killing their queens or destroying their habitat. As a consequence, the queen population has remained relatively constant over the years, while our eagle populations fell dramatically.

                When was the last time you saw a queen breeding center make releases into the wild to help restore local royalty populations?

          • Re:Once more ... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by thirty-seven (568076) on Sunday February 17 2008, @12:50AM (#22450752)

            Having a powerless figurehead is an idiotic waste.

            I disagree, for two reasons. One is that, as another poster pointed out, a head of state's job includes a lots of things other than exercising power: hosting state diners, doing good-will tours, giving out awards. Why not keep these roles with a specialized non-political head of state, and separate out the head of government roles (making foreign and domestic administrative policy decisions) into a political position with power.

            Secondly, and more controversially, I think that there are great socio-political benefits to having a "figurehead" who represents the state and/or nation. Having spent a fair amount of time living in both the United States and Canada, it is my opinion that the US political culture is actually more suited to a constitutional monarchy than Canada is. There seems to be a sizable group of Americans who have an almost mystical respect for the presidency, treating it as a holy office that must be kept sacred. This can lead to horror and hatred that anyone would question George W. Bush "during time of war" and also to an overreaction to Bill Clinton's sexual affair sullying the presidency. In a constitutional monarchy, such people can worship the office of the head of state without interfering with or polarizing valid political criticism, since the person who gets criticized for making political decisions, the prime minister, does not occupy an office revered as representing the state/nation, in the way that some people view the presidency or monarchy as doing.

            As an aside, a large majority of developed, democratic countries has figurehead heads of state, even though most of these countries are republics, not constitutional monarchies. They have a parliamentary system with a prime minister making most executive decisions, but instead of a monarch they have a president, sometimes directly elected by the people (Ireland), chosen by Parliament (Germany), or elected by an electoral college (India). In these systems the president is mostly a figurehead, with about the same power (or even less) than the Queen has in Canada.

          • Dear Citizens of America,

            In view of your failure to elect a competent President and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

            Her Sovereign Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy), as from Monday next.

            Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and

      • The Queen of Canada? hahaha. Sure, we keep her picture on the $20 bill, and some of the coins, but that's about it.

        The office of Governor-General is "where the buck stops" nowadays in terms of the monarchy, and while its' a position appointed by the queen, its only after the "advice" of the Canadian government - in reality, its a political sinecure made by whoever's in power at the time. The "queen" would be ill-advised to ignore the "advice."

        Its the same with the "oath of allegience to the queen" tha

        • A trifle harsh? He's been more use than some figureheads we could mention... ahead of the game, even, in his batty way.

    • I'm very proud to be Canadian for several reasons, and one of them is our stance on Copyright and fair use. I quiver in fear (as I commented in my blog [mikebabcock.ca] just yesterday) at the thought of us introducing draconian DMCA-like legislation, but I think in general Canadians really do get it more than our American counterparts.

      Most telling is how the ISPs and judges have stood on these issues in the past. A judge in Canada recently compared the use of file sharing software having illegal uses to a photocopier in a

      • Re:Once more ... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by pokerdad (1124121) on Saturday February 16 2008, @07:53PM (#22449244)

        Most telling is how the ISPs and judges have stood on these issues in the past. A judge in Canada recently compared the use of file sharing software having illegal uses to a photocopier in a library being usable for illegally reproducing entire books. Do you remove photocopiers from libraries just because they could be used for illegal purposes? Exactly.

        While I agree with you, I think there is an important point to be made about why this is much more possible in Canada that the US.

        In the US 90% of all media are controlled by just six companies; they make virtually all the movies, music, and television seen by Americans. They also have a sizable stake of the ISP business. This gives them both economic motive to accert the kind of control they do, and the muscle to do it (both monetary muscle, and the immense power they can have over public opinion via what they choose to put on the news).

        In Canada the situation is very different. We don't have any media conglomerates comparable to those in the states. Our movie industry, after being practically dead for half a century, exists now primarly as a cheap shooting location for American productions. While we have a music industry, in every measurable way foreign, especially American, music has dominated for a very long time. While we have plenty of home grown television stations, except for cbc they tend to show only as much Canadian content as CRTC regulations require; its quite telling that of the top 20 shows in Canada the past few years only two are Canadian (Hockey Night in Canada and Corner Gas), and before Corner Gas became such a hit HNIC spent something like a decade all alone.

        In a very real way there is a huge irony to the way American media companies have come to hate Canada. The situation in Canada, where we only produce a tiny fraction of the media we view, is entirely because of economic bullying from American content producers; quite simply they drove Canadian companies out of business. So our media companies have practically no stake in the production of content and as such barely care about things like DMCA. The media companies not having a stake means that not only do they not see draconian measures as not helping them, but it would hurt them in so far as it would create expenses for them with little reward.

        On more than one occassion various industry groups in the US have threatened to cut Canada off if we don't do something about copyright infringement. And while I really don't think they have the balls to do it, I think it would benefit us greatly if it did; possibly breathing new life into industries long dominated by American content.

        • Re:Once more ... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Citizen of Earth (569446) on Saturday February 16 2008, @10:33PM (#22450014)

          On more than one occassion various industry groups in the US have threatened to cut Canada off if we don't do something about copyright infringement.

          I double-dog dare them to. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot by eliminating 26-million easily-accessible customers (English-speaking Canadians). But, more importantly, they wouldn't do it because they know that their rhetoric is bullshit.

    • We have been lucky (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Geof (153857) on Saturday February 16 2008, @06:13PM (#22448612) Homepage

      I am tremendously proud of Canadians for standing up in the thousands to let it be known they do not support the adoption of the failed copyright regime suffered by citizens the United States. Our action has been essential to preventing the adoption of this law - so far.

      But we have also been very lucky. The previous government introduced a bill (admittedly not as bad as what is reported to be in the current plans). An election was called before it could become law. Timing may again be on our side: the current minority government is likely to fall in the near future. If so, the clock would probably be reset.

      For us to really win this, we need meaningful consultation (i.e. where we not only talk, but the government listens) to ensure the views and interests of all Canadians are taken into account. Very few politicians understand why most Canadians would care - I suspect many of them are not quite sure what to make of the current outcry. Until recently, media stories seldom even reported that the issue had another side. Until our politicians acknowledge the significance of copyright and the public passion over the issue, we must keep fighting.

      • Re:We have been lucky (Score:5, Insightful)

        by p0tat03 (985078) on Saturday February 16 2008, @06:38PM (#22448772)
        I think the main reason for the saner laws in this parliament is due to the minority. If any party has a majority we'll get some pretty crazy bills passed through the House. IMHO we should just keep minority governments around forever - it keeps legislation sane and relatively nonpartisan.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Chemicalscum (525689)
          Yeah minority governments scare the shit out of the politicians. The Trudeau and Clark minority governments were better than any majority ones. It forces even a dangerous authoritarian bushite neocon like Harper to try to appear human, which he finds very painful.
      • Well, we in the US try to do our part. For example, just last week, I got opposition to the DMCA, restoration of the public domain, and other similar planks added to the Johnson County Democratic Party platform (we're the fifth largest county in the state, out of 99 counties). It's not much, but it's a start; in a couple months we'll be trying to carry it over to the state platform.

        Ordinary people can do their part, however small it may be.

  • Seriously Canada (Score:5, Funny)

    by usul294 (1163169) on Saturday February 16 2008, @04:45PM (#22448056)
    I know you've been lobbying for years to get me to move up north. The nice people, clean air, beautiful outdoors, universal healthcare, and now apparently a somewhat more laissez-faire approach to copyright law. Look, maybe if you rig the election to put Hillary Clinton in the White House, I might consider moving.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sorry no can do, but we'll throw in a case of real canadian beer.

    • I know you've been lobbying for years to get me to move up north. The nice people, clean air, beautiful outdoors, universal healthcare, and now apparently a somewhat more laissez-faire approach to copyright law. Look, maybe if you rig the election to put Hillary Clinton in the White House, I might consider moving.

      We're a mite peeved at the US right now - you were supposed to KEEP Celine Dion! It was a win-win ... we got rid of her, and she kept your old people indoors at the casinos, feeding their Social Security checks to the one-armed bandits.

      And you've gone and devalued your dollar to the point where Canadians earning the Canadian minimum wage can afford to vacation in the US ... or buy a foreclosed house as a vacation home ...

      What next - reimpose the draft so we'll be flooded with asylum-seeking draft-dodgers? What's up with that, eh? Are we going to have to burn down the White House again?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by schon (31600)

        The last time we elected a woman to lead Canada she got bored after a few weeks, took her pension, and went home.
        The last time? When have Canadians ever elected a woman to lead Canada?

        The only female PM in our history (Kim Campbell) was one that took over after the previous PM retired.

  • Its the beer stupid (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zappepcs (820751) on Saturday February 16 2008, @04:49PM (#22448078) Journal
    or I wish it was that simple, then we could all chip in $10 and get D.C. flooded with the stuff. Something in Canada seems to be affecting their politics. If we could bottle it I'm certain that an American entrepreneur could make money off of it. Whatever it is, the US desperately needs some of it... well, lots of it.

    I've been pleasantly surprised how the Internet has been affecting politics in the US lately, and I hope that it's a long term ongoing effect. I hope that WHATEVER it is in Canada is something that spreads southward like those geese they have, or something.

    • Re:Its the beer stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Telvin_3d (855514) on Saturday February 16 2008, @05:27PM (#22448310)
      Biggest difference in Canada? We have a habit of tossing out political parties that piss us off. We can get away with it because there are 4-5 major parties active at any one time, so easy enough to out with the old and in with the new. And there is always a couple parties that have to compete to be the new big dogs.

      And when we get rid of a party, they are gone. In 1993, one of the Conservative parties passed unpopular tax laws. They went from controlling 57% of the seats to controlling .6% (2 out of 295). Do that once or twice and your politicians will get the message.
      • I think that is exactly what we need in the US... more than two parties. Sure, there are more than two, but everything is fixed so that only one of the two parties can prevail without something that approaches the scale of blow back that marie antionette experienced.

        There are those of us who hold out hope that the Intarwebtubetrucks will help bring on that scale of blow back, but history is a stern teacher, and bribery is addictive.

        Perhaps the founding fathers had more foresight than anyone gives them credi

          • Re:Its the beer stupid (Score:4, Informative)

            by Telvin_3d (855514) on Saturday February 16 2008, @07:29PM (#22449078)
            Just to note, the only bills that can bring down the government are budgets. They can also designate other bills as a non-confidence bill when they want to signal that the other parties better be serious if they want to oppose it. No one is going to bring down the government and trigger an election over a minor bill.

      • Re:Its the beer stupid (Score:5, Informative)

        by yesteraeon (872571) on Saturday February 16 2008, @06:59PM (#22448916)
        I certainly agree that we're not quite as bad off as the U.S. with their two party system, but you've overstated the case quite a bit. First of all, at the federal level there are only 3 national parties that actually win seats in the House (I'm not sure where you got 4-5 from). Secondly, only two parties -Liberals and Conservatives- have ever controlled the federal government. Lastly, as much fun as it was to watch the Conservatives implode in 1993, that event left us with only the Liberals having a realistic shot at winning elections. As a result, we basically had a ONE party system from 1993-2004. Which, as far as democracy goes, is pretty bad.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Telvin_3d (855514)
          Well, right now we have the Conservatives, the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP. That makes 4. In the past decade or so, there was the Reform party and the Alliance. If you go back into the 80s and 90s I think you can add another one or two that had seats in parliament. Heck, the Green party tends to come close to a seat or two each election. Also always a few independents with seats.

          Yeah, and look what happened to the Liberals when they got comfortable. I don't think the number of parties in control ma

  • Dear RIAA (Score:5, Funny)

    by syousef (465911) on Saturday February 16 2008, @04:57PM (#22448126) Journal
    Your bribe isn't large enough. Please supply more money and we'll find reasons to fold on our constituents.

    Regards,

    Canadian Parliament

  • Hey, Canada isn't perfect! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mangu (126918) on Saturday February 16 2008, @05:00PM (#22448140)
    Don't they have a tax on all blank media to somewhat "compensate" for illegal copies?


    If the law were fair, making a copy of any copyrighted work on media bought in Canada would be totally legal.

    • Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Hamster Lover (558288) * on Saturday February 16 2008, @05:10PM (#22448228) Journal
      Yes, a copyright levy is collected on CD-Rs and other media to compensate artists for personal copies of musical works, which is permitted under the Copyright Act. If I borrow a friend's music CD and copy that CD on to media purchased under the levy then I have broken no law. The caveat is a person must make the copy for themselves; you cannot make the copy for a friend and then give it to them. Of course, there is absolutely no way of determining this.
      • I remember when the levy first came out - a lot of larger retail stores, like "London Drugs" and Staples figured it would make people stop buying blank media, so they started paying it for the customers. In my area, blank media is priced about the same as it is in most stores across the border, so I don't think the stores ever stopped paying the levy.
      • If I borrow a friend's music CD and copy that CD on to media purchased under the levy...

        There's no requirement that you copy onto levied media. You can make a personal copy onto any audio recording medium. See the Copyright Act [cb-cda.gc.ca], it's not that hard to read.
  • Imagine if Americas politicians listened to massive public outcry.

    http://www.copyrightreform.us/ [copyrightreform.us]

  • Wishful thinking.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Frosty Piss (770223) on Saturday February 16 2008, @05:06PM (#22448196)

    Canadian version of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been delayed again, possibly because of massive public outcry...
    Wishful thinking. Unfortunately, the reality of practice is that the "public" has no say in these matters. More likely is that different big-money factions haven't yet decided how to portion the money up.

    • Re:Wishful thinking.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Gorshkov (932507) <gorshkov@oghma . o n.ca> on Saturday February 16 2008, @06:07PM (#22448562)

      Wishful thinking. Unfortunately, the reality of practice is that the "public" has no say in these matters. More likely is that different big-money factions haven't yet decided how to portion the money up.
      Actually, NOT wishful thinking. One of the major differences between Canada and the USA is how parties & campaigns are financed. Personal donations ONLY are accepted - corporate & organizational money is strictly verboten. And in practical terms, the limits on campaign spending are so tight that pretty well any candidate with a hope in hell of winning is able to raise all the money they're allowed to spend from the voters in their riding.

      A lobby group my have more "access" to the lawmakers, by virtue of the fact that they have their offices in Ottawa .... but they can't really buy, or even rent the politicos .... their only weapon is persuasion. Because the politicians know that at the end of the day, the ones who WILL fund their campaign, and/or vote for them, are the people in their riding. Period.
      • The Canadian system sounds incredible, I wish I lived there. But actually I was talking about the distribution of money between the ISPs and the media owners. The synopses says...

        Canada's biggest ISPs have banded together to oppose the proposed new legislation...
        Maybe the media owners just haven't offered a big enough cut to the ISPs?

        • Re:Wishful thinking.... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Gorshkov (932507) <gorshkov@oghma . o n.ca> on Saturday February 16 2008, @06:23PM (#22448670)
          And they couldn't possibly, I don't think. Governments here are a lot more inclined to regulate than they are in the US, and the ISPs are very, very well aware of that. If something like that went through, the ISPs are know damned well all the regulation, requirements, and red tape they'd have to deal with .... and all on their own dime.

          Free markets are a good thing. But sometimes, even just *presence* of a government willing to interfere is enough to make everybody play nice.
      • I think your description is somewhat idealized. There are plenty of ways to use money to influence politicians. I believe several have left public office for plum jobs in industry, for example - often with businesses connected to their job in government. For them, reelection didn't matter.

        • I think your description is somewhat idealized. There are plenty of ways to use money to influence politicians. I believe several have left public office for plum jobs in industry, for example - often with businesses connected to their job in government. For them, reelection didn't matter.

          Simplified, but not idealized - I was trying to make a point in a paragraph, not give a treatise on political organization in Canada.

          Of course there are going to be ways to influence - but the jaws surrounding elections

        • Re:Not quite so simple (Score:4, Insightful)

          by perlchild (582235) on Saturday February 16 2008, @08:38PM (#22449482)
          I think the fact that Canadians actually have a law to make it illegal to engage institutionalized bribery doesn't make it impossible to influence government through money... It just means the US have been needing such a tool for years, and managed not to get it.

          Having the tool won't remove ALL bribery... But without the law, it just means the bribery(ahem "Lobbying") is legal... I just wish I understood why most US citizens have been so convinced their system is superior for so long that when someone shows them an idea they can use, they refuse to even consider the matter...

      • Personal donations ONLY are accepted - corporate & organizational money is strictly verboten.

        This is the case at the federal level - provincial legislation is still a bit of a patchwork. My home province (Saskatchewan) still allows campaign contributions from corporations, trade unions, etc. - it's my understanding that many other provinces either ban (Quebec, Manitoba) or restrict (Ontario, New Brunswick) non-personal contributions.

  • Was it DMC and they added the A?

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