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we are about to get f***ED if this law passes. this is the 4th time they have tried to pass it, but this time they look to actually be doing it

please please please read this and fill out the letter and send it off.

CLICK HERE TO HELP STOP THE CANADIAN DMCA



UPDATE: JUNE 02, 2008
We would like to take this opportunity to apologize for the duplicate email notification however it was brought to our attention over the weekend that the Letter Wizard was not functioning properly in certain versions of Internet Explorer. This issue has now been resolved. Please take a moment and send your letter today if you have not already done so or if you experienced errors doing so previously.

Indications are that the Minister of Industry, Jim Prentice will move forward in the coming week and introduce copyright reform legislation that has been engineered without proper public consultation and without adhering to its own accountability mandates by failing to table the WIPO treaties for a period of 21 sitting days before introducing the legislation for which these treaties provide the framework for modernizing Canadian Copyright laws.

Last fall the Canadian minority Conservative Government made it clear in their Throne speech that Copyright Reform was a priority. People close to the process have revealed that this bill will go beyond way beyond the US counterpart's DMCA law. This new legislation will come with very stringent anti-circumvention provisions that prohibit the use of tools or techniques that open files with digital locks, even when the files in question belong to you.

ConsoleSource.com has recently become a member of the Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights and embraced the following principles we would like to see enshrined in an amended Copyright Act:

Any amendments to the Copyright Act must not prohibit the development and manufacturing of circumvention devices and technologies, commercial trade of circumvention devices and technologies, the possession and/or utilization of any device or technology that can circumvent a TPM or DRM for a non-infringing purpose or otherwise lawful activity such as fair dealing, interoperability, time and format shifting.

The Copyright Act should be amended to bring the backup copy provision into the 21st century by expanding the right to make an archival backup copy to all digital consumer products regardless of format or media.

Amendments to the Copyright Act seeking to add provisions relating to the liability of Internet intermediaries and subscriber actions should take a “notice and notice” approach that will provide the best balance between the protection of intellectual property rights and the fundamental rights of individual and academic expression.

Amendments to the Copyright Act need to ensure that statutory damages are limited and users must be protected from statutory damages if the user has good-faith to believe their use of the protected work was fair and non-infringing, or if the user is engaged in purely private and non-commercial activity.

If you also believe in these principles and want to do your part to ensure that your rights as a Canadian consumer are protected then please take a moment and send a letter to the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, Minister of Industry Jim Prentice and Minister of Canadian Heritage Josée Verner using our letter wizard.



CLICK HERE TO HELP STOP THE CANADIAN DMCA

More word on Canada's version of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which Industry Minister Jim Prentice is rumoured to be ready to release tomorrow: it will include a $500/download fine, which means that if your kids download a couple of $0.99 singles without paying for them, the American labels will be able to take $1,000 out of her college fund (and those are Canadian dollars, still worth something on the international market).


Some sources say that it comes as a result of Prentice's concern that the Conservatives could be tied to huge damage awards against teenagers for peer-to-peer file sharing. If that is indeed the case, it is not clear how this provision will solve that concern. While there are still many questions about this provision (does it target downloading or uploading? does it exempt sound recordings covered by the private copying levy? is the $500 a set amount or a maximum? is it per infringement or cover all activity? does it require actual evidence that files made available are downloaded?), consider a case involving 1000 song files, not an unusually high number. The "retail" value of those files is roughly $1000, yet on a per infringement basis the Prentice proposal could lead to a damage award of $500,000. Even small scale cases would lead to huge awards - 50 songs could lead to a $25,000 fine. Ironically, the prospect of huge damage awards comes as Canadian musicians and songwriters have both rejected lawsuits against individuals. If Prentice hopes that the provision reduces the concern associated with file sharing lawsuits, this move may actually have the opposite effect.

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It looks like Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice is about ready to roll out the Canadian version of the dread US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a terrible copyright bill that has been drafted without consultation with the scores of Canadian organization clamoring for input into the law (on the other hand, it's a sure bet the US trade rep had quite a lot to say about the text). Michael Geist has a handy guide to the likely talking points that the Minister will use to spin his sellout to his buddies in the American entertainment industry.
QUOTE

The bill is the result of extensive discussions with the Minister of Canadian Heritage to ensure that the Canadian approach strikes the right balance between protecting creators and ensuring appropriate access [in reality, the bill as drafted last December was only modestly amended to include a few user-oriented provisions such as time shifting. As mandated by the U.S. and willingly followed by Prime Minister Harper and Prentice, the DMCA-like anti-circumvention provisions remain largely unchanged].
The bill includes important provisions for consumer rights such as time shifting [while long overdue, the time shifting provisions are rendered ineffective in the digital environment by the bill's anti-circumvention provisions. In the event that the bill also includes a format shifting provision to allow for music to be transferred to iPods, the same concern arises since copy-controlled CDs cannot be legally shifted].

The bill ensures that Canada lives up to its international copyright commitments having signed the WIPO Internet treaties in 1997 [Canada is currently fully compliant with its commitments since signing a treaty does not mandate ratification. Further, the government will speak about "implementation" rather than "ratification" since this bill will still not allow Canada to fully ratify the treaties and sticking to implementation will enable the government to delay meeting its commitment to debating international treaties before ratification. Finally, there is great flexibility within the WIPO Internet treaties such that the Canadian approach could easily be far more balanced and still allow for eventual ratification].

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I'd be surprised if the bill passed. I think it's being introduced to placate hs US counterparts, but I seriously doubt it will get passed.

Don't be so sure DP, the problem is that Harper may make this as with all his other bills a "confidence motion" (One hell of a misnomer if you ask me :P) and either the bill passes as is, or BANG election call and god only knows which way an election would turn at this point...

NefCanuck

Harper wants to pass a law also....... Musta been smoking some crack or some s*** cuase its absolutely deranged!

BILL C-51 i think its called which means VITAMINS would require a prescription and would not be an over the counter product. Since wen did Vitamin C be considered a drug?!

Yay on the lowering of taxes (just like the government said they would, but never did until now) but NAY on these two ridiculous laws theyre trying to pass! Don't be to comfy with how things are now DP. Germany was once a comfortable country until Adolph came into power! Maybe lowering taxes is part of his plot to get the people on his side! hahah jk, I don't see it going that far.

So you can't download music...boo hoo.

Harper wants to be too much like the Americans, and he needs to go. Same kind of deal with the C10 Bill about the funding for the film industry in Canada.

Canadian ST,Jun 3 2008, 09:00 PM Wrote:So you can't download music...boo hoo.
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Then stop charging us a tax for it.

Canadian ST,Jun 3 2008, 09:00 PM Wrote:So you can't download music...boo hoo.
[right][snapback]265854[/snapback][/right]

If only it were that simple...

the law opens the doors to make copying any protected CD, even for the sake of ripping it to your computer for personal use against the law.

Some people, like myself, actually buy all their CDs, and then rip them so they're not tethered to a single machine (or 3 or 4 like iTunes)... I don't share my music, I don't distribute it, and I don't use it for profit. But I like being able to copy my music to my Sony MP3 player, my Playstation 3, and stream across my network to my stereo, and create MP3 Cds to play in my car. All things not possible with current DRM schemes.

And this law would make what I do technically illegal...

so why should it be illegal for me to buy CDs and then rip them to whatever format I want to use on the devices I own?

Here's the thing though, even the American DMCA as draconian as it is, doesn't prohibit you from taking your music that you have bought & paid for and transferring it to another medium for your own use (though not for use at the same time of course) otherwise iTunes and the like would be dead, dead, dead...

I have no issue with them saying that I can't do what shouldn't be legal anyways, however having said that, if the law passes as is, then the blank media levy must dissapear because now they would be taxing an illegal activity, if as they claim, the majority of blank media sold is used to illegaly copy CD's/DVD's

NefCanuck