Think the DMCA is scary?

[LordLundar]

How about if the MPAA, the ESA, and the RIAA are allowed to ignore country borders and use it to get their way?

Read this and tell me that this not similar or even worse, as it allows government agents to be these organizations enforcement agents.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=557b8515-4cca-4302-8877-56ac6d28e822

[BlackIce, British Commie]

How about if the MPAA, the ESA, and the RIAA are allowed to ignore country borders and use it to get their way?

Read this and tell me that this not similar or even worse, as it allows government agents to be these organizations enforcement agents.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=557b8515-4cca-4302-8877-56ac6d28e822

This simply means we shall need new and better ways of hiding information.

[KN]

This simply means we shall need new and better ways of hiding information.

This.

Never underestimate humanity.

[CraigB]

How about if the MPAA, the ESA, and the RIAA are allowed to ignore country borders and use it to get their way?

Read this and tell me that this not similar or even worse, as it allows government agents to be these organizations enforcement agents.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=557b8515-4cca-4302-8877-56ac6d28e822Not surprising. The proposed "Canadian DMCA" is a HUGE issue, and shows that this government is very, very much inclined to coordination with the U.S. (and the U.S. entertainment industry) on copyright/trademark issues.

That said, this whole thing would be ludicrously hard to enforce. Making border guards check every laptop and iPod for unauthorized media? Are you kidding? And what would they do if they found it? Copyright violation is a civil offence; in Canada, it's not technically even that.

And this:

On top of these relatively small-scale enforcement efforts, ACTA also proposes imposing new sanctions on Internet service providers. It would force providers to hand over personal information pertaining to "claimed infringement" or "alleged infringers" - users who may be transmitting or sharing copyrighted content over the Internet....

...is impossible. It's completely in violation of Canada's (rather strict) privacy laws. the ISPs are already catching hell for the small amount of sharing they're doing now. There's no way this is enforceable; barring an incredibly broad (and unlikely) Section 1 defence, it would get quickly struck down as against the Charter.

[Jabrwock]

I plan on meeting with my Conservative MP (Carol Skelton), but I expect her to parrot Prentice's PR lines, and not actually have a clue what the hell she's talking about. But I'll sum up my meeting as follows:

"Why are you delegating the power to interpret the right to 'fair use' and 'time/format shifting' to the copyright holder? Why bother defining it at all if you're just going to let the author take it away when they choose?"

I know the "real" answer is "because the US told us to", but I doubt I'll get that kind of transparency out of a Conservative. Their calls for a more transparent government during the last election seems quite the joke now...

I hope it won't get that far, but the last time the Copyright Act went before the Supreme Court (they ruled on the CD levy), they basically said that copying for personal use was a defacto right because the government was authorizing it by assuming we're all guilty of it anyway (through the blank CD "fine"). I suspect if it went before them, they'd overturn the "digital locks" restrictions, because with that section in there, it makes it nearly impossible to exercise our "right to personal copying" under "fair use".