Tech Companies Say Don't Blame Canada For Copyright Problems 104
An anonymous reader writes "The Computer & Communications Industry Association, which includes a who's-who of the tech world, including Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Fujitsu, AMD, eBay, Intuit, Oracle, and Yahoo, has issued a strong defense of current Canadian copyright law, arguing that the US is wrong to place Canada on the annual Special 301 list. The submission argues that the US should not criticize Canada for not implementing anti-circumvention rules (PDF) and warns against using the Special 301 process to 'remake the world in the image of the DMCA.'"
Canada's IP laws are in some senses stricter (Score:5, Interesting)
But they've left out all of the dumb, anti-consumer portions that increasingly blight US law. How DARE they!
Re:Proudly Canadian (Score:5, Interesting)
To get back on topic, the chances are very remote, and that's the way I like it. Personally, I feel Canadian copyright law is far ahead of the US's DMCA centric attitude. The nature of copyright has to evolve with current times and technologies, allowing P2P downloads for personal use while putting a fee on MP3 players and blank media is a compromise that I see as fair.
Re:Proudly Canadian (Score:2, Interesting)
Leaving ethical implications of piracy aside, I'm just curious whether you're sure your BT connections are encrypted. Many clients offer encryption for the purpose of circumventing traffic shaping procedures used by some ISPs, but are very adamant that this encryption does NOT provide any assurance in skirting the law. As far as I am aware, no client offers true endpoint-to-endpoint encryption, but even if they did offer it, most clients choose low-strength ciphers like RS4, because using the stronger AES cipher requires a lot more CPU cycles for both the handshake (which must be done with every peer you connect to), as well as the actual encryption of the sent data.
While encryption does make it harder to detect that the traffic crossing ISPs networks is in fact BT-related, it's not impossible for them to crack it. Also, being that circumstancial evidence, or simple blackmail, has worked for the RIAA thus far, I wouldn't be willing to chance it.
Were I to be interested in torrenting some content in a less-than-legal manner, I would ensure that I remained low on the RIAA (and others') priority lists by: :)
1) not downloading anything that is immensely popular (i.e. selling well) right now, or hasn't been released yet
2) encrypting as much of everything as possible in the event that the connections generated by me do catch someone's eye
3) not piss off your ISP by torrenting to your max bandwidth during peak hours (most clients have a download-scheduling preference pane that will allow you to restrict, or eliminate, downloading during these peak hours http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/01/08/sunday-evening-the-new-web-rush-hour/ [pcpro.co.uk] ). PS, if anyone has found any good, concrete data on when peak internet usage is, i'd love to see it
4) use a blocklist (some people like 'em, some people hate 'em). there's not much concrete data on whether they really help, but it helps me feel better. some clients (like Transmission) have built-in ones
And of course, feel free to correct/discuss any of this.
Re:Proudly Canadian (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason that things like file sharing are legal in Canada is specifically because Canadian copyright law *hasn't* changed. Our laws were written in the 1980's, when it wasn't really easy to copy a large volume of music, and the risk was mostly just people copying a CD to a cassette for a friend, or making a mix tape for somebody. You weren't dealing with high volume copies, and you weren't dealing with anything near the ubiquity that the Internet affords, which is a large part of why the laws are so relaxed here.
I meant in 2007, when the RCMP officially stated their stance on P2P file sharing for personal use. Their decision for P2P and the decision to put that fee on MP3 players is a decision for current times. At least, I consider anything within the past 5-10 years fairly recent, in terms of the speed of our legislation.
Some relevant links for Canadians (Score:4, Interesting)
Michael Geist's Blog [michaelgeist.ca] - Dr. Geist is a law professor who takes a rather dim view of the constant calls to make copyright law more strict.
The Pirate Party of Canada [piratepartyofcanada.com] - a small concern now, only about 100 card-carrying members, but it's not going to get any bigger (or reach the point where it's officially a party) if people don't get involved and at least send a bit of money their way to get over the legal hurdles. ($10 membership fee).
Re:Special 301 list ?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Canada likes America. We just think you're mostly all insane. But after putting up with Quebec for so long, that's not a big deal.
Funny - most of us Quebecois would say we put up with the rest of Canada ;)
All jokes aside, I think it must be pointed out that Quebec (alongside some political parties like the NDP) has been fighting for years against the rising "American" attitude towards copyright and culture in Ottawa. Culture being extremely important to us (it's basically the only thing left that distinguishes us from most of North America), our society and artists are extremely vocal about protecting everyone's right, both the artist's and the citizen's, equally and fairly.
As a result, for example, the Quebec music industry is healthy and vibrant with talent, a lot of it fresh and new (think Arcade Fire, Malajube, Dumas, Rufus Wainwright, Jorane, Simple Plan, DJ Champion) and others older but well established (Leonard Cohen, Harmonium, Sam Roberts, Angèle Dubeau, Gregory Charles, Les Colocs)...
Insane? Maybe ;) But come and attend some of Montreal's great summer fests (Jazz Fest, Francofolies, Osheaga, Just For Laughs) and you'll see insane is sometimes not that bad a thing ;)
Re:Special 301 list ?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes it does cost lots of money, but we more than make up for that with the savings from our "death panels".
What's really humorous is that we already have 'death panels' here in the US. They're called HMO's and they decide when the odds of you surviving an illness become to low to make it worth the expense of treatment. They also decide which treatments and doctors you are allowed to see...
I have long felt that.... (Score:3, Interesting)
To that end, I would endorse the view that making a private copy of any copyrighted work, including time shifting, format shifting, decryption, or straight out copying, for the personal use of the person who is making the copy should *NOT* be copyright infringement, as long as the copy from which the private use copy is being made is not itself an infringing copy (or in the case where the copy from which it is made resides in a different place than Canada, nor would it be infringing on copyright under Canadian law). This exemption to copyright infringement should apply even if the copyright holder does not endorse such copying. Sharing, lending, selling, or any other way willfully distributing, giving, or providing such a private use copy to anybody else would negate this exemption, and unless they otherwise had permission from either the copyright holder or the agents that represent the copyright holder, such activity should render the person who created the copy now guilty of infringing on copyright.
The biggest reason I would advocate such a change to the current copyright law is simply owing to an issue of feasibility to enforce. If a person has made a copy of something that is truly for their own private use, there is not even a remotely possible way that anybody else would have even known that such a copy had even been made, and so it makes no sense to have any law in place that even implicitly would seem to disallow such an occurrence. Likewise, I think it makes a lot of sense to explicitly exempt such actions from copyright infringement so that people can have clearly defined boundaries on what is permitted and what is not.
Re:US influence (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was younger, 40 odd years ago, I used to wonder why America was considered a bastion of freedom. Possession of certain plants were highly illegal, being a communist was illegal, kids who went to the States for a year of schooling came back with stories about having to swear allegiance to the flag every day much like in a dictatorship. Black people were finally being allowed to use the same washrooms as white people. They could with a straight face have a constitution which stated all men were equal and allowed slavery.
America always seemed like the ultimate example of successful propaganda.
Re:Special 301 list ?? (Score:3, Interesting)
I second this. As a German who lived in the US and now Canada (Toronto) I think I can claim informed outside observer status. My impression is that Quebec's influence pulled Canada away from the "conservative" excesses found in the states. I credit Quebec in large part for Canada feeling much more European - culturally as well as politically- than the US.