New Canadian anti-P2P legislation (Here come the bogus lawsuits)

12th Jun 2008 23:24 #1

Banned

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/06/12/tech-copyright.html

You Americans have had to suffer through this backwards type thinking for a few years. I just wanted to know what Canadians thought about this. Everything, including Divx/Xvid videos are illegal. Even buying a CD and copying it to your PC/Ipod seems to be illegal. Gawd, do I hate the conservatives and their attempts to stop the new technology. Most musicians agree that P2P actually helps them too - but that seems to have no bearing on the governments. This is clearly for the cooperations to make even more money and have more control. Makes me sick to be Canadian today. Is there any chance this bill will not go through?

13th Jun 2008 02:47 #2

gll99

Renegade

It was obvious to everyone watching this for many months that the party in office which modified the copyright act was heavily influenced by the intense USA MPAA and RIAA lobby and ignored Canadian experts on the subject who held a different view. The industry got everything they paid for and more. Few if any public forums were conducted. The whole thing was concocted under the Maxwell Smart cone of silence (I believe Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution owns the copyright so I better credit them to cover my a$$) . The party in office claims it brings the law into the digital age but references to video in the act still speak of tapes. Canadians have been returned to the analogue age. This doesn't pass the smell test and is bound to have consequences.

For downloads, they seem to have limited some legal damages at $500 for a total action. From what I read on the gov't site, for example if you download 5 movies for personal use (not distribution) the total would be limited to $500. Funny thing in their examples they even mention uploading an image to facebook or downloading / uploading a clip to youtube. It seems uploading an image could cost you up to $20,000 so better forget that 30 second clip from a trailer on youtube that many people think is sort of "fair use" or at least worthy of being ignored by the copyright holder. Now they can make big bucks so they won't ignore it if the uploader is a Canadian. Your Isp will not have to immediately identify you to the complainant but they will have to send you a notice and keep all information and records including all tracking data for the potential court case that might follow. If they don't do it they will face penalties themselves. Expect internet costs to go up since the government won't pay for the new investigative tools, storage, court preparation, testimony and other related services and the ISP won't absorb it so guess who will have to cover these new costs ....? Every Canadians with an internet connection.

The biggest issue is the potential criminal and high financial penalties of up to $20,000 per occurence for circumventing digital locks on any medium. Although tv capture for time shifting and conversions for hand held devices are permitted with certain limiting conditions the killer is that this is only when no digital lock, nocopy broadcast flags or other limiting agreement exists. It looks like a simple statement on the wrapper saying "If you buy this product you can't convert it" could constitute an agreemnt and make you a lawbreaker if you convert an unprotected disc with a statement like this. That may not be what was intended maybe they were speaking of drm but it seems open to that broader interpretation. The only loopholes for backing a DVD seem to be the old analogue copying or if it was even possible a one for one sector copy where the copyright flags and schemes are not touched since it would be against the law to circumvent any protection schemes. In a one for one conversion (copy), to strictly comply with the law you would need to own more than one dvd player device. By going from dvdrom to dvd/dl you might technially call it a conversion. I might be wrong but my interpretation is that the computer player to divx would qualify as a conversion so you could play it on your divx player, and you didn't circumvent the copy protection of the DVD.

The only thing left is to speak with the wallet. Today, we just pushed back some planned purchases. No PS3 (mainly for the bluray player), no hdtv, no new fancy computer, no new DVDs and no music cd's. The PS3 and new 1080p, 120 mhz tv were to be very near purchases within a week or two at the most, I already have the cash in the bank for them and we had narrowed the list of models for the first 52" tv. The new computer was planned for this early fall. We buy hundreds of $$$ worth of DVD movies and CD's as gifts every year and still many more for ourselves but not this year. Of course one purchase would have led to another. With an hd tv and bluray I would have wanted a bd burner and a hd capture card leading to the new computer and software. Which means I would also have spent to upgrade my cable boxes and service to HD for each new hdtv set but who needs those now if the nocopy flag is on which means hd capture won't be possible for the shows I probably would like. Who needs a BD burner if I also can't backup my bluray dvd and burn those tv shows. Of course I also won't be re-buying any bluray movies for titles I probably already own on DVD because I didn't buy the PS3 or a standalone bd player nor of course any of that expensive blank bd media for my non existent burner. Look at al the money these guys saved me. I should write to say thanks but the stores probably won't be happy

Except for updates to my software and viewing videos on services like youtube, visiting here, a few vb programming sites, a diy projector site and a few other browser type sites, I don't really need a broadband connection. I will probably save some $$$ and switch back to dialup just for browsing and emails. Why risk getting hounded and face a lawsuit for watching a clip and someone complains that I watched their copyrighted material and threathens me to pay or go to court. I don't need the hassle. I suspect this is the type of Canadian backlash that will come from this.

btw) Those who think this only affects people like us think again. If you own a cellphone that can hold an image or video or downloaded ringtone or other ditty, a camera, a handheld device which displays images or plays video, a hdd, usb thumb drive or flash card, an old player with a backup cd in the drive etc... any of which contain any images, video or other copyright material you legally backed up or saved for personal use and you subsequently throw it out, give it to charity, give to a friend, lend it or sell it etc... and you do not remove the content then that makes you a distributor of copyright material and you are subject to a possible lawsuit as high as $20,000.

Not everyone is a geek but almost everyone now converts video for handheld players, car dvd players etc... a much broader range of people are somewhat tech savy today than ever before even if they only use the 1 click tools to get what they want. The anger will flare as the days and weeks go by and people start to realise the implication of this newly modified act.

P.S.
Well there is one more thing we will do but we won't discuss it here. Many, many of us will save that for the Autumn season when not just the leaves will fall.