Canadian DMCA Bill Withdrawn 198
ToriaUru writes to let us know that Michael Geist is reporting that the Canadian Minister of Industry will not be introducing the proposed Canadian Digital Millennium Copyright Act legislation as scheduled. That proposed legislation, discussed here a couple of weeks back, is now reaching Canada's mainstream press. Geist doesn't speculate on why the legislation is being withdrawn, but it could have something to do with the massive popular outcry against the proposal that Geist helped to orchestrate.
MPAA's response: (Score:4, Funny)
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PS Anne Murray likes the song too.
Here's how it will PASS... and its underway. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, it will go to a small blip or nonexistent blip on the radar, and a year down the road, the RCMP will be kicking in doors or seizing equipment based on a treaty ratified with Bun-fuk-u-stan, which states that they have to enforce whatever treaty was accepted for the "benefits of Canda's socialized welfare system".
That or the UN, intergovernmental panel on climate change will discover that Britney's pirated MP3's are actually causing global warming or costing Britney so much in lost royalties that she can't afford to feed those starving children that the UN has failed to care for over the years (Kofi Anan's son, however, managed to buy himself a pair of Lamborghinis with the money he received as "salary")
(And we know that a bunch of politically appointed "scientists" and bureaucrats are going to be FAR more correct on telling us why the earth is getting warmer each morning and colder each evening, because that damn glowing orb in the sky that has had variable output over several million/billion years is just too insignificant to really matter... its wooden stoves that heat up the earth and diesel engines, so shut down that goddamn sun and stop wasting that heat!!)
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Where does global warming, the UN, the USA and Kofi's son come into it?
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For example. 3 years ago, everyone thought the so called "NAFTA superhighway" was a myth. Now its been discovered that Canada and the USA have working groups bringing it about through low level regulation and land grabs (eminent domain here has been abused forever, so its nothing new, Canada is using drug busts as far as I hear, to confiscate homes and land... and Mexico... well, Mexico doesn't need its people's permission to abuse them, not even to make
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I am fully supportive of any UN action that results in less Britney Spears. Pro-piracy, anti-piracy, pro-climate-change, anti-climate-change
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"And it would have worked, too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids!!"
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Satire: exposing human folly to ridicule [princeton.edu]
well done (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest of you that just whined but could take the time to actually help do something:
You got luck this time, you leeching mother fuckers.
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Well, I did my best to explain to President Bush that Canada was working on weapons of mass destruction and needed to be bombed immediately. However, he merely shrugged and said that would be something for Jenna to deal with when she is President.
Re:well done (Score:5, Informative)
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Absolutely agreed. I emailed my MP on the matter (could have written a real letter, that's on my to-do for next time this bill inevitably shows up). This is an example of representative government actually working, we ought to be celebrating. When your government works like it's supposed to, it's everyone's responsibility to be vigilant keep it working!
My praise and congratulations go out to Dr. Geist, who successfully rallied the people. If only there were more men like him out in the world.
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Document everything and then get loud about it?
Was that a rhetorical question?
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couldn't* (though logically shouldn't that be "didn't", otherwise how can you complain?)
lucky*
motherfuckers
That is all.
Re:well done (Score:5, Informative)
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And remember, you don't need stamps to write your MP!
On the other hand (Score:3, Informative)
And we did know something about the bill. We knew a ban on DRM circumvention technology was in it because the government announced it would implement the WIPO treaty. That in itself is bad e
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So, Minister Prentice received an email (and would have called him from Toronto as well, but
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No, it's called having a scrap of common sense in the real world.
Some of us were going to wait until the bill was actually introduced before writing our MPs to protest. I thought it might be nice to see what's in it for myself first.
You know who's writing it and you know they're paying your elected officials to betray you with it (or you're a delusional idiot), so obviously waiting that long to do something about it is something only a fool would consider reasonable.
Good luck being a fo
the usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the usual (Score:5, Informative)
This was about a bill that was going to be tabled this week. Nobody knew what was in it, except for insiders (one of whom apparently leaked details to Geist.)
This shows pretty much that Geist's source is credible - if the bill wasn't as bad as he said, then Minister would have tabled it, and made Geist look foolish.
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Clarification (Score:2)
rj
Re:the usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Then once he read it he realized it was as bad as everyone made it out to be he withdrew it before anyone else could read it to spare himself and the government the controversy.
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Doesn't look like the Minister responsible... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF_dHu5fRAk [youtube.com]
This is a video of Industry Minister Jim Prentice getting ambushed by amateur reporters and bloggers on the way to his riding association's Xmas party, and he comes across not only as not caring about anyone who isn't a CEO, but not really understanding the issue.
He may be our "series of tubes" guy in Canada.
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Then once he read it he realized it was as bad as everyone made it out to be he withdrew it before anyone else could read it to spare himself and the government the controversy.
Probably had more to do with the combination of corruption allegations and a minority government situation. The government does not want to rock the boat so to speak as many Canadians are not happy with Ottawa right now.
While the bill is withdrawn, it will come back some day. With a majority government it would have passed unnot
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I'm not sure if he even read my fax or what but I do feel a lot better knowing that I actually said something and did something instead of just cheerleading on message boards.
-Proud to be Canadian!
Monopolies... (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright is simply a government enforced monopoly: allowing the copyright holder to have a monopoly on that particular piece of IP.
Like many of you, I am also a producer of intellectual property. Unlike big business, however, I don't see the need for me to have a monopoly. I am more encouraged to produce when I cannot simply rest on my butt and earn money for work that I did years ago.
As a consumer of intellectual property (gads, how I hate that term!), I simply cannot see how it benefits me to let my government grant big companies a monopoly on what is rapidly becoming our common, shared culture.
Re:Monopolies... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Slippery slope" is such a nice way to describe it.
Nothing wrong with copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
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It would be like doing 10 years of good investing on the stock market, retiring on $10M dollars only to be told 5 years down the track to hand all your capital gains over because you are not allowed to enjoy the fruits of your work; you must keep working.
And why would I pay for something new the artists created when I can have so much s
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Define "good investment". You'll quickly realize that you're just making a circular argument.
It would be like doing 10 years of good investing on the stock market, retiring on $10M dollars only to be told 5 years down the track to hand all your capital gains over because you are not allowed to enjoy the fruits of your work; you must kee
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Please stick to arguing the case, personal attacks don't make you any more credible.
So since anybody... or more accurately whoever does it more efficiently, can make money off of it it actually is completely unrelated to to communism.
No it isn't, your interpretation is not what I argued. Taking a personal possession or efforts from someone without due compensation and for the free use of everyone is communism. On top of that someone else profiting from you
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Please stick to arguing the case, personal attacks don't make you any more credible.
No, you go out and learn what an ad Hominem actually means.
The fact that you are extremely stupid or a troll was the conclusion of the argument absolutely demanded by your statements. It was not in any way part of the argument. Your whiny little bitchery did nothing to address the sound, valid points which I arrayed against you. Obviously, you know that or you wouldn't have resorted to whining so soon.
No it isn't, your inter
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I'll tell you what I proposed in the past and continue to advocate:
1. Only the original creator can "own" the copyright / patent. And before some poor slob comes along and screams this is against "work for hire", it isn't. Corporate interests can license whatever they want from the original creator. In fact, this alone would give creators a
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First of all, you have to define who is a "creator". It seem simple for a single author of a book, but even that poses problems as books are edited and is an editor shuffling content and re-writing parts to make it better also a "creator"? And what share should they get for that effort?
It also becomes much more complex when more people are involved. Say you and I write a book together, 50/50. Now I die in 10 years time and
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Not just creator but "original creator". An editor isn't creating it so he isn't the original creator. In short, the editor would need a license from the author to edit that work and it becomes a derivative work. The same hol
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"It would be like doing 10 years of good investing on the stock market, retiring on $10M dollars only to be told 5 years down the track to hand all your capital gains over because you are not allowed to enjoy the fruits of your work; you must keep working."
Your example sucks. If we wanted to use your metaphor, this is ho
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If you make a song, make $10M bucks on it and they take the song away, you still have $10M. In this case, the song you made is the product.
The nice thing about keeping copyright is that you make your $10M, buy the jet and then keep a steady income every year from back-catalog sales to put fuel in the jet too.
In my stock market example, the money you made, is the product, which can be likened to your song.
So yeah, that is confusing and that is why the ex
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HELL YES!!!!
The entire point of copyright, a government granted monopoly, is to the artist encourage the artist to make more art. This is not so much a sit back and relax bonus, it's a keep up the good work fee.
See the difference? Now you'll also see why it's not good to make the term too long (artists will be less likely to produce more art) and why it's ridiculous to extend it after the artist is dead, as is the case now (life + 70 years?). The fina
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Thats an interesting way of looking at it.
But who says how long the person can take before he stops being rewarded and forced to create something else? One person could do it weekly but others, depending on the art and personality and life-situation, may need years.
Also, it may lead to more blatently commer
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How does your artist come up with his first work of art anyway? There's no up front payment with (c), you only get money after the art sells. The artist in question made something that sells in his spare time, most likely while working a daytime
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The analogy isn't great (Score:2)
It's not a great analogy really, and I think we all know that. The problem is that an investment is (a) never guaranteed a return (b) and even if it gains in value, it can disappear for no reason whatsoever (c) is taxed. While (a) is certainly true of a song/movie/book, (B) and (C) really aren't true of IP.
I made this comment several y
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There is, its called: GETTING PAID IN ADVANCE, or at the very least paid on delivery. I write code, that's how I get paid. That's how I paid my wedding photographer, and how I paid the band that played too, for that matter. Its how I paid the architect who designed my home, and for one of the paintings on the wall.
Its simple and it works well. In a world where things are easy
Too many contradictions (Score:2)
Why would more information be produced if it is free to share? Any information anyone produces is free to share if the producer wants it to be. Yes, you have copyright, but you can license your information any way YOU want. Got something to share, make it public domain or give it a creative commons license. Knowing that their information is going to be copied freely might be inspiring, but it is hardly going to make anyone able to spend days, months, year
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But that, again, is
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When you look at the low avera
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And copyright isn't a monopoly, in the way most people think of monopoly. If I don't like RIAA music, there's plenty of indie bands I can listen to.
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I make my living, completely and entirely, as a result of the IP I produce. I write books, scripts & music, I design performances, etc. I write software and web applications. I'm also a performer. This is my bread and butter.
As for monopoly, I stand by what I said. If you have one company who holds copyright to a significant fraction of our current culture, and markets that material as culture to perpetuate it for their own financial gains, and the copyright
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Oh really? I never had any trouble. Let me explain:
Information can be shared infinitely, which is usually great. However, it means information has no scarcity, which in turn means no real money can be made naturally from it. Why would anyone buy it when they can get it for free of the internet? More importantly, if there's no money to be made, why would people bot
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In fact, I'd wager that 98% of works out there don't take in any significan
Well, it would be reckless of the people to allow (Score:2)
Go Canada! Stand up and who your pride AND defiance.
Good news, everyone! (Score:5, Funny)
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Wow, this is almost as good news to Canada as Global Warming is!
To Hell with that! Where am I supposed to live once my igloo melts, huh? Global warming is effing with our housing markets here, gawdamit.
On a side note, I was curious: I ran ' "igloo for sale" ' in Google and got 910 results. ' "Igloos for sale" ' got 1970. Granted, no actual igloos are for sale AFAICT, but still... Who. in reality, ever has a need to say those phrases? It reminds me of George Carlin's thoughts on shoving a red hot poker up your ass (I'm too lazy to link).
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Last winter and last summer in Ottawa were pretty mild. The cold weather lately demonstrates that we haven't been polluting enough. To the beer-fridge store!
It's hit the news-wire now! (Score:2, Insightful)
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Thank a minority government (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't live anywhere near Calgary, but I was one of the ones who (politely but firmly) e-mailed him with my objections to a Canadian DMCA and how C-60 loomed large in my mind last election.
If the current government can ignore the Kyoto accords, they sure as heck can choose to ignore WIPO as well.
Re:Thank a minority government (Score:5, Insightful)
Below is the text of what I sent:
--
Dear Hon. Jim Prentice:
I regret that I am unable to attend your open-house session tomorrow, 08 Dec 2007, in person; however, I would like to take this opportunity to express my concern over a proposed piece of legislation regarding Canadian copyright, namely the so-called "Canadian DMCA".
I work as an IT professional, however my background is in pure Computer Science. I often spend time performing security research. A Canadian version of the US DMCA legislation greatly concerns me -- one needs to look no further than the 'US v. Elcomsoft & Sklyarov' case to see why.
References: http://w2.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Elcomsoft/us_v_sklyarov_faq.html [eff.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sklyarov [wikipedia.org]
In this instance, legitimate security research was suppressed, and the researcher arrested at the will of a large corporation. Rather than acknowledge & fix the weaknesses in their product's security, Adobe chose to use the DMCA as a sledgehammer to suppress disclosure of information they did not like.
This has obvious chilling effects -- as an analogue, if a researcher were to find a weakness in the encryption used for e.g. online banking, is it reasonable to arrest the researcher rather than fix the weakness? To my mind, it is infinitely preferable to acknowledge, fix, and continuously improve security through legitimate research. Those with criminal intent will search for these weaknesses in any event -- it is much better to discover and fix the issues in a transparent manner. As the saying goes, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." hold very true here.
Other kinds of DMCA abuse is well-documented and widespread. A few simple Google searches (e.g. "DMCA abuse") very quickly turn up many sources of information. This legislation has been used to suppress reviews or opinions which are negative towards large companies -- technically, these should be handled as a civil lawsuit for slander or libel (if they are, in fact, untrue); however, many large corporations choose to invoke a DMCA takedown notice instead, as it forces the content hoster to take down the material immediately, rather than waiting for a judgement from a court of law. It is important to note that it is *corporations* that send these takedown notices, not the courts. Under this model, 'justice' is a distant wish.
There was some research done in 2005 by the University of South Carolina which showed that 30% of DMCA takedown notices sent by corporations were improper, and even potentially illegal (unfortunately, the document seems to have been taken offline, or moved, but the previous URL was http://lawweb.usc.edu/news/releases/2005/legalFlaws.html [usc.edu]). This is a stunningly high figure -- laws are traditionally written to ensure that there is an onus of proof before charges are filed, and that due legal process is followed. The rules of jurisprudence are critical to ensure the equitable operation of any society, but overly broad, overly powerful laws like the US DMCA allow companies with deep legal pockets to run rampant, and allows them to run a private campaign of fear and intimidation.
I wish to point out that I am not pro-piracy, but rather am opposed to legislation (and legislators) funded or supported by corporations. This is the very antithesis of a democracy, and is the current state in the US. Canada is already dangerously close to that abyss, and I do not wish to
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here's what I went with:
First I'd like to point out a fundamental shift in the way copyright law functions. Before the age of networked computers, copyright law functioned as a restriction on publishers by authors, more like an industrial regulation. If you
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cockroaches don't like light (Score:2)
You mean.... (Score:2)
Boy, I bet they feel dumb...
Not withdrawn, delayed (Score:5, Informative)
Yes! (Score:2)
I actually took the time to write a letter. Dead trees and the whole thing. To my dying day I'll claim to that it was both well written and convincing. All I said is that it seemed like a _very_ bad idea to be deciding on copyright law in the midst of one of the most dramatic changes in the real-world IP practice that I can recall. If all the IP holders are dropping DRM, maybe it's not the greatest idea to be enacting laws about legitimizing DRM... Right? I sent it on Thursday.
Here's to having absolutel
Discovering Facebook (Score:2, Funny)
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You just can't pay for better entertainment than that. The USA needs to take a page from the parliamentary system. And for you Americans out there, the Prime Minister isn't immune from the verbal sparring either.
likely US reaction (Score:2)
"Introduce this bill again, pronto, or we'll flatten Toronto!" (Canadian Bacon [wikipedia.org]).
Re:likely US reaction (Score:5, Funny)
- signed, the rest of Canada.
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General Panzer: Ooh boy! Scare the shit out of everyone. Even me, sir!
U.S. President: Jesus, is this the best you could come up with? What about, ya know, international terrorism?
General Panzer: Well, sir, we're not going to re-open missile factories just to fight some creeps running around in exploding rental cars, are we, sir?
Bill could still be introduced tomorrow (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, of course, as already mentioned, the title and summary of this story are wrong, since a bill that's never been introduced cannot be withdrawn. As usual with editors, YMMV.
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I like short URLs too, but not ones that are cryptic. www.parliamentofcanada.gc.ca would be stupid. www.parl.gc.ca is cryptic (what's a parl??) www.parliament.gc.ca, or better, www.parliament.ca would be perfect.
Yeah, you're right. Google rules. Still, if you Google parliament and you ended up with www.parliament.gc.ca I'd be a little more confident I'd gotten what I wanted than if it turned up parl.
En francais! (Score:2)
No they just realize that some Canadians spell it "parlement" and so calling it "parl" is the same stem in both official languages....and before you go making wisecracks about french speaking Canadians just remember that we are asking for the government to listen to us. So we can hardly fault them when they listen to and accommodate an even bigger minority.
Last Canadian DMCA thread: (Score:2)
I keep hearing about how wonderful Canada is, compared to their neighbor to the south, and then stuff like this happens which seems to show no regard for the common citizen at all!
-Nom du Keyboard
You'll keep hearing wonderful things because we actually have a fairly highly motivated political class who more or less raises enough outrage to keep laws on the better side of sane. Sometimes it's an uphill battle though. I think this minority government wouldn't risk power over this. Hopefully they'll tone it down so much it won't be a threat or they'll ditch it.
- me
I'm glad I was right. At least for the time being. I think it's spreading from the initial alarmist into more politically potent circles now. IT's exactly the sort of legislation Conservative supporters would be against. More importantly the "anybody but the liberals" crowd that brought the conservatives into power would suddenly change into the "anybody but the conservatives" crowd. I'm glad it's a minority government. Minority government seems to do the least damage.
One Guy's Letter (Score:2)
I certainly didn't make these jackasses change their minds, but I'd like to think my letter may have helped a tiny little bit. For anybody who may want to adapt it for use against the American species of jackass, here it is:
Dear Mr. Prentice:
You are planning to enact a copyright law that has profound implications for my privacy, my property and my wallet. It is based solely on the greed and misrepresentation of industries that have an almost-unparalleled record for perfidy. I cannot believe you are
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Excellent letter! I also copied the PM.
With any luck, maybe a few other people will join this thread, and a nice little series of template letters will assemble itself. It would certainly make things a lot easier for people who feel strongly about this issue but don't like to write a lot.
Too soon to celebrate... (Score:2)
They'll Try Again (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the correct response is every time they try something like this, push to have IP laws relaxed and clarified. Push to add transparency to the government so that the crooked deals to the corrupt politicians will be in the open for all to see. Push to make it impossible for a entity that only exists as a legal fiction to buy the law with billions of dollars. Every time they push, push back harder.
dion needs to grow balls (canadian politics) (Score:2)
We
Re:the evil person in me... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the evil person in me... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good Job (Score:5, Funny)
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The CIC is making a bogus claim of religious and racial discrimination in order to persecute a writer, thereby launching a lawsuit on frivolous grounds. And what is the CIC complaining about? Why, writers who say that Muslims make bogus claims of religious and racial discrimination, in order to persecute writers, and launch lawsuits on frivolous grounds.
There's an odd totalitarian circularity there.
Best slap down