Canada bows to pressure from American entertainment industry

[Uraniun235]

Canadian Prime Minister promises to enact a Canadian DMCA in six weeks

Michael Geist sez,

Months of public debate over the future of Canadian copyright law were quietly decided earlier this week, when sources say the Prime Minister's Office reached a verdict over the direction of the next copyright bill. The PMO was forced to make the call after Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore and Industry Minister Tony Clement were unable to reach consensus on the broad framework of a new bill.

With mounting pressure from the U.S. - there have repeated meetings with senior U.S. officials in recent weeks - the PMO sided squarely with Moore's vision of a U.S.-style copyright law. The detailed provisions will be negotiated over the coming weeks by the respective departments, but they now have their marching orders of completing a bill that will satisfy the U.S. that comes complete with tough anti-circumvention rules and no flexible fair dealing provision.

For those wondering what can be done, my only answer is to speak out now. Write a paper letter to your Member of Parliament and send copies to the Prime Minister, Moore, Clement and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. No stamp is required - be sure to include your home address and send it to the House of Commons, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A6. Once that is done, join the Facebook group and the Facebook page and be sure to ask others do the same. You may have spoken out before, but your voice is needed yet again.

What a goddamned disaster. The Tories have shown -- yet again -- their utter contempt for public opinion and Canadian culture and small business when these present an invonvenience to more windfall profits for offshore entertainment giants.

Remember: thousands of us responded to the Tory inquiry on copyright law, and overwhelmingly, we said we did not want a US-style copyright disaster at home. Remember: hundreds of thousands of us wrote and called our MPs. Remember: Canadian artists' coalitions fought against the imposition of a DMCA in Canada. Remember: America's copyright war has been an absolute trainwreck, with tens of thousands facing lawsuits, competition and innovation eroded by DRM, free speech challenged by copyright takedowns, and no improvements for creators or creativity.

There's only one thing stupider than being the first country to enact the DMCA, in spite of its obvious shortcomings: enacting the DMCA after the first country has spent a decade showing how rotten and backwards this approach to copyright is.

Copyright Bill on Notice Paper as Ministers Emphasize Balance, Modernization

The government has placed the forthcoming copyright bill on the Notice Paper, which means that the bill could be introduced as soon as tomorrow. The campaign to support the bill has also begun, with an op-ed in today's National Post jointly authored by Industry Minister Tony Clement and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore. The op-ed throws out lots of statistics about the digital and cultural economies and tries to make the case that it has been years since the last update (it references how the current bill is more than 80 years old, but then states that at the last update Canadians used CD players, pagers, and Sega Genesis - not exactly an eternity given that many still use CD players and pagers).

A word cloud of the op-ed would focus primarily on two words - balance and modernization. Both words appear repeatedly in the piece, with the Ministers emphasizing that the bill will be balanced and that modernizing the law is long overdue. This suggests that the C-61 communication line of a "made in Canada" has been dropped, which makes sense given the digital lock provisions will reflect a made-in-the-USA approach.

Hey, maybe Canada will have better luck with that War On Infringement. Criminalizing unauthorized decryption did a great job at protecting all those DVDs and Blu-rays!

[Aaron]

Even the RCMP said last go around that they had more important things to police then this stuff. Sooner we're rid of Harper and his American dick sucking cronies, the better.

[Vendetta]

In related news, judges in Spain have declared filesharing no different than lending books, and thrown out a case from Spain's equivalent of the RIAA against a torrent hosting site, saying that as no-one was making money from distributing the content, no crime was taking place.

[Enigma]

What is the Libs, NDPs and the Blocs take on this? Are they for it or against it? Would they or can they vote it down?

[Stofsk]

That's a good question. What's the current make up of Canada's legislature? Because what the government wants the government can only get if it has a commanding majority in both houses (assuming a bicameral legislature)

[Aaron]

The Tories currently have a minority government. If the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc team up then it can be defeated.

Numbers:

PC: 144
Lib: 77
B.Q.:48
NDP: 36
Ind: 1
Ind Cons:1

I'm not so sure it will happen, mostly because the current Liberal leader seems to be a lame duck. The NDP will most certainly oppose it though. Not sure about the B.Q.

Edit:

from the NDP Site

Reality check: Anti-consumer copyright bill: written for the US, undermined by Ministers’ own behaviour

Wed 02 Jun 2010

Today the Conservatives will introduce a copyright bill that is expected to include new provisions for digital locks that will limit consumer rights. But what was the driving force behind this legislation and what about the two Ministers introducing it?

A paper that will be presented today at the Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association says that the line from the PMO on writing this bill was “We don’t care what you do, as long as the U.S. is satisfied.”

And the Ministers behind this bill?

Last year James Moore admitted he watched “more television on my iPod than I do on an actual conventional television set or through my personal video recorder.” (Canwest News, May 10, 2009) Under his own government’s previous copyright legislation, Bill C-61, this would have been illegal, making Minister Moore liable to punitive fines and jail time. Why is Mr. Moore today proposing legislation that might limit his own use of digital material?

Industry Minister Tony Clement amassed a whopping 10,452 song collection on his iPod by breaking Canada’s existing copyright laws (Canwest May 27, 2010). Today in the Globe and Mail, digital rights expert Michael Geist said he’s “expecting the legislation will lack a flexible ‘fair dealing’ provision that gives users broader leeway to use copyrighted works without permission for legal purposes such as research, reporting, or private study.” (Globe and Mail, June 1 2010)

There you have it: a bill written to satisfy US demands, introduced by two Ministers whose own use of content demonstrates the failure of the bill.

I can't find anything from the Liberals, B.Q. (only part of their site is in English ) or the Liberals.

Though if that line from the PMO is to believed then it won't be enforced. The RCMP had said previously that they have far more important things to do anyways.

[Aaron]

Ghetto Edit:

Had the wrong link. This is the correct one:

http://www.ndp.ca/press/reality-check-a ... n-behaviou

[Solauren]

This is Harper making the other political parties look bad, nothing more.

This is clearly a case of 'lame-duck law' making. The RCMP has already said, prior to this bill getting anywhere near support, that it will not enforce it.

So, why try to pass it? Simple: Because the Conservatives know the other 3 parties will not work together. And even if he does, he still wins.

First, if they don't work together, that's more ammo for future elections. "They all hated the act, but they still couldn't work together to block it! Do you really want any of them in power? Vote Conservative"

Second, if they work together, the Conservatives can turn this into a 'confidence vote. Meaning, if the bill fails, Canada goes to the election polls. Something all studies indicate we don't want to bother with right now. Of, if things go to that, the Conservatives get more ammo. "Opposition Parties: Making you Vote when you don't want to!"

And it's going to continue until the Liberals get a good leader in, and grow a set of balls.

So, I'm figuring 2020 or so....

[Uraniun235]

Don't you guys have any other viable parties?

[Aaron]

We're currently in the middle of a "liberal backlash." After 10 (or 12?) years of Jean Chrétien as Liberal PM and a bunch of scandals folks are fed up with them. Mind you their not all that pleased with the PC's either, as evidenced by two successive minority governments.

[Stormin]

Yeah. Other than this current hiccup the Liberals are pretty much the only party, in fact there's only been 3 or so Liberal party leaders who have not been prime minister. The Conservative party only exists to get into power once a generation to show Canada why they shouldn't be in power.

[Phantasee]

I don't think the Tories have a chance at majority until they change leaders to someone a little more centred compared to Steve. The Reform guys are just way too right-wing for most Canadians, and Alberta won't turn on them if they move to the centre a bit (like the old PC party), so it's really win-win for them, I think.

Liberals also have no chance until they change leaders, and to be honest, 2020 sounds about right to get a full roll-over of elected members. By then enough of them will be free of the taint of scandals and so on that they'll have an easy time getting back in the driver's seat. Not that there's anything stopping them from doing it sooner, of course.

[Imperial Overlord]

I don't think the Tories have a chance at majority until they change leaders to someone a little more centred compared to Steve. The Reform guys are just way too right-wing for most Canadians, and Alberta won't turn on them if they move to the centre a bit (like the old PC party), so it's really win-win for them, I think.

And where are they going to get someone closer to the center than Harper? Who in the party is to the left of him and in a position to even make a stab at leadership? Every prominent Tory is pretty much the same or even further right. He's a dick, but he's got an iron grip on party discipline which is keeping their MPs from saying what they really believe and thus completely tanking them with the Canadian electorate and he's a fairly skillful political manipulator.

[Phantasee]

Yeah. Well. There is that.

Eventually he will be forced out by the party itself (and I'm not talking about the MPs) because the party members won't let him continue leading if all he keeps getting are minorities. At that point there will be quite a few people coming out of the wood work to take a stab at the leadership race, but I guarantee there will be a clear front runner that will have already been selected by the powerful interests in the party.

This is all supposition on my part, btw. I pay more attention to provincial politics and I'm not really in tune with the federal Conservatives.

[Zeond]

There's been a hubbub in the news recently about as possible NDP Liberal merger with former heavyweights like Chretien and Broadbent speaking in favour of it but all actual party officials and MPs have been denying it.

In many ways the current situation mirrors the Liberal's 12 year run in government where the western and conservative votes were split between the Reform Party, later known as the Alliance Party and the Progressive Conservative Party. Once these two parties merged into the new Conservative Party and the right side of the political spectrum was unified, which combined with the backlash against the Liberals, led to the current situation.

This would suggest that the Liberals and NDP should seriously consider a merger or coalition like we almost got in December 2008 before Harper prorogued parliament but it appears that the two parties are simply not willing to work together. This is quite unfortunate as a poll referenced on CBC news suggested that over 40% of Canadians would support a merged party. In the end as long as west continues to vote NDP/Conservative and the liberals have a leader with less charisma than a 2x4 the current situation will continue and the best we can hope for are more minority governments.

[Temjin]

This bill could be worse. An article I read on this a few days ago had a short interview with someone representing the entertainment industry where he was bitching that it doesn't include a levy on MP3 players like what's currently on CD's.

Ah, here we go.

MONTREAL - The bill aimed at modernizing Canada's Copyright Act is shaping up to be a love-it-or-hate-it affair.

Reaction to the proposed law came fast and furious after it was tabled in the House of Common on Wednesday.
Related Items

1.
Articles
* New copyright bill sets $100-$5,000 penalty for breaking 'digital locks'

There seemed to be little immediate consensus about who benefits most, but all stakeholders agreed it represented a significant shakeup of laws that have changed little since 1997.

For intellectual property lawyer Barry Sookman, the bill's highlights include a provision that would allow for so-called mash-ups — the creation of new music and video from copyrighted material mixed together.

"It would probably be the most copyright-user-friendly bill anywhere in the world," said Sookman, who heads a technology law group at McCarthy Tetrault.

"Canadians would have rights that aren't available, say, in Australia or New Zealand or England."

At the same time, business leaders, and especially Canada's video game industry, welcomed the bill's tough provisions prohibiting the cracking of digital locks.

“Without strong protection for our intellectual property, we’re basically operating in a digital Wild West," said Danielle Parr, the executive director of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada.

"Promoting piracy under the guise of 'user rights' does nothing to defend the livelihood of thousands of Canadians who rely on turning great ideas into world-class entertainment.”

Those responsible for collecting royalties for Canadian musicians were somewhat less enamoured with the bill.

The Canadian Private Copying Collective was hoping it would include a levy on MP3 players, as already exists on blank CDs and mini-discs.

Instead the bill allows users to copy songs from their hard drive onto an MP3 player, known as format transfer, without breaking copyright laws.

"We find ourselves in a situation where there will be a significant decline in our royalties," said Annie Morin, the agency's chair.

"What is the difference between copying a song on a blank CD or onto a MP3 player?"

Others who felt left in the lurch by the proposed changes were university and college teachers, who felt that fair-use provisions did not go far enough.

The current law permits copyrighted material to be reproduced only for research, private study, news reporting, criticism and review. To those exceptions the new bill would add education, parody and satire.

But the country's leading university-teachers' union says the new exceptions are meaningless, as long as the ban on breaking digital locks exists.

“By imposing a blanket provision against all circumvention, the government will lock down a vast amount of digital material, effectively preventing its use for research, education and innovation, and curtailing the user rights of Canadians,” the Canadian Association of University Teachers said in a news release.

The group's objections took Sookman, the intellectual-property lawyer, by surprise. He suggested the educational exception might be so beneficial to teachers it could hurt businesses.

"There could be a substantial loss of revenues to content-holders as a result of this bill — particularly in the education sector," Sookman said.

"This is going to substantially impact Canadian publishers."

The Conservatives will now try to convince opposition parties to strike a special Commons committee to study the bill over the summer.

The government is anxious to pass the bill after an earlier effort to update the Copyright Act failed two years ago.

The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), which represents 21,000 performers, said it is relieved to see the government taking steps to bring Canada’s copyright laws into the 21st century but is alarmed that artists are being left out.

“We’re happy to see that after 13 years of embarrassment on the world stage we’re finally catching up to international norms by becoming WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) compliant,” said Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s national executive director.

“But overall this bill is a real blow to artists.”

ACTRA national president Ferne Downey also expressed reservations.

''How is it ‘balanced’ to allow people to make copies of our work without giving us anything in return? Half the bill is missing, the half that respects and pays creators,'' said Downey.

''The simple step of extending the private copying levy to digital devices is a win-win solution for consumers and artists, it seems like it would have been a no-brainer.''

The Canadian Intellectual Property Council (CIPC) welcomed the amendments.

"We applaud and fully support the government's efforts to update Canada's copyright regime," said CIPC chair Bob Weese.

"Canadian businesses need better protection against the enormous financial toll of online piracy. A strong and modern copyright law will also help our country compete more effectively in the global economy."