The Canadian DMCA Battle Concludes: How Thousands of Canadians Changed Copyright

An anonymous reader writes "Nearly 15 years of debate over digital copyright reform will come to an end today as Bill C-11, the fourth legislative attempt at Canadian copyright reform, passes in the House of Commons. Many participants in the copyright debate view the bill with great disappointment, pointing to the government's decision to adopt restrictive digital lock rules as a signal that their views were ignored. Despite the loss on digital locks, the "Canadian copyright" led to some dramatic changes to Canadian copyright with some important wins for Canadians who spoke out on copyright. The government expanded fair dealing and added provisions on time shifting, format shifting, backup copies, and user generated content in response to public pressure. It also included a cap on statutory damages, expanded education exceptions, and rejected SOPA-style amendments."

Summary is not anonymous

[BForrester]

At least give attribution to the summary, lifted in its entirety from Michael Geist's blog:

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6544/125/ [michaelgeist.ca]

The original post also gives a great breakdown of the specific policies that will change under this new legislation.

Re:The digital lock provisions trump everything el

[Scott64]

When this argument was brought up during the last attempt to pass this legislation, it was said that "effective" doesn't necessarily mean that it "works well" in this context, just that protection is "in effect" (no matter how ineffective the protection actually is). IANAL, but I believe that distinction was made by one and if I had any clue where I read that, I'd link to it.

Re:The digital lock provisions trump everything el

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the direct link to the bill [parl.gc.ca]. It is in lawyer / legislative speak, but (as you alluded to) says nothing about effective.

Media companies

[ciderbrew]

I'm not too sure if people for "Media" read this; but here it goes.

Dear Crap Mongers
I've stopped downloading, no longer bother with cinema and haven't had a TV for well over a year. It's going well and I hope you go out of business. There is really so much more to be doing than watching the bland stuff you produce. (Live open mic comedy is fantastic in London).
Life without a constant barrage of marketing is really nice too.
Your's
Some bloke...

If I can't watch it on iplayer(BBC) - It's not worth the bother - I've really missed nothing of worth have I.

Re:Use to protect communications?

[mark-t]

Actually, the bill does contain explicit exemptions to its digital locks provisions for the specific purposes of both law enforcement and computer/network security. If you can make a valid case that your decrypting somebody else's lock falls in one of those categories, you're fine.