Canadian Labour Congress Considers Reversal On IP Policy 112
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian Labour Congress is considering a dramatic reversal of its stance on copyright and IP policy. CLC is comparable to the US AFL-CIO, but Canada is over 30% unionized. The campaign 'we must change copyright and IP law to fight evil counterfeiters and copyright pirates' is actually succeeding in Canada. Quoting the CLC's new policy resolution: '... this critical issue requires a far-reaching response involving legislative and regulatory reform, policy change, and allocation of proper resources to combat the problems. The Canadian government must be given the structure and resources to mount a sustained attack on this pervasive problem, both within Canada and internationally. The criminal and civil laws in Canada must provide adequate deterrence. And consumers must be educated that counterfeiting and piracy are not victimless, nuisance crimes, but instead strike at the heart of our long term economic security.'"
Re:Sigh (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Sigh (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed. Human labor shouldn't ever be compensated. When are you coming over to change my oil?
When are YOU going to pay to the guy/gal who told you that oil has to be changed? You took away information, it had been very useful to you, you probably freely shared it around although it was not your original work in first place, and yet chances are you never actually compensated that person, even worse, you deprived that person from her income and deserved fame (the person had remained anonymous to this day and probably poor) by telling everybody, for free, about changing oil.
You should be thrown into slammer with the rest of those pesky sharers!
Re:Too much kool-aid??? (Score:5, Interesting)
He referenced a 2007 CLC document to show that their latest positions on Copyright and IP are not in line with their previous positions.
It's a very timely comment by Prof Geist.
Re:Utter Crap (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed... if you dont have something tangible to produce and your entire market is based on 'Intellectual Property' well I got news for you not every country is a signatory to these copyright treaties. Even then there have been Canadians who have had their copyrights broken in England and England just gave them the finger for the most part because they didnt sign some super new upgraded treaty (WIPO) that the US wants everyone to sign now that'll force governments to adopt ridiculous DMCA like laws.
I always got music without paying (Score:5, Interesting)
In my case it's difficult to estimate, but it has never been above a few percent and I'm 52 years old. When I was young, we mostly listened to the radio, recorded a few songs on tape, and not very often bought a record.
These days, the radio is mostly shit, a consequence of a monopoly [clearchannel.com] owning the radio stations, but we have the internet to get music without paying directly for it.
Not stealing, I've never stolen anybody's music, I have higher moral standards than some people who sell music [wikipedia.org].
That "enforcement getting serious" is just the media industry bosses realizing they fucked up, but not admitting it. They had a business model based on getting a very small return per item where the production of each item had a very small cost. When they tried to raise the return per item the market said "NO". That's how capitalism works.
Re:ah, the old intellectual-property canard (Score:3, Interesting)
BAM! That's a copyright dude and you just contradicted yourself.
A copyright is a legally binding contract between you, the government, and the artist. Among other things, it grants the artists the right to restrict duplication and distribution, both of which are alluded to in your reference to a non-disclosure agreement.
Your real issue, since you agree with the principle of a copyright (evidenced by your support of a NDA), is that government is getting involved in the enforcement of the legal contract, when it should not be doing so.
If the government can legally enforce copyrights, then why the hell don't they legally enforce judgments in a courtroom the moment they are made? Why should those judgments be the only ones in which the plaintiff is required to do all the work collecting?
So clearly you don't like copyrights the way they are, but support some rights for artists. Well which is it? How do you want it to work?
Re:Business unions (Score:3, Interesting)
And what percentage of your music is paid for?
I've had an emusic subscription since I heard of them, so pretty much all of it. Which exchanged maybe three or four CD purchases per year for $12 per month, ie, at least tripling the amount I spend on music. Of course, I also get at least six times as much music so it's a fair deal.
Where was all the concern about "artist compensation"
The concern over artist and creator compensation has always been there, since the beginning of copyright. The fact that you apparently don't know that indicates you may need to study up on the topic.
Copyright, and in fact, most IP, is simply a horrendously inefficient way to get money to the supposed purpose. With more than 90% of the funds lost on the way it means it's costing the economy huge sums for nothing; an efficient allocation system could support ten times as many artists and creators as the current one. For the exact same money consumers are spending today.
before enforcement started getting serious?
Enforcement is irrelevant; next-gen systems will be encrypted stealthed multi-protocol friend-to-friend darknets which will make any monitoring impossible, basically the computerized and automated version of the sneakernet friend-to-friend copying. If the pressure to move to such systems becomes significant, any chance to ever exert any form of control will be permanently gone. And with it goes any chance to monitor any other transfers and communications, as well as much of the efficiency (what there is) of transfers. The whole of social communications will have moved to a clandestine cell system. For better or worse.
The window of opportunity to implement a productive solution to the issue is closing. But whatever else happens, the current model is dead.