Canada’s copyright law overhaul: Fair or Foolish?
By now you’ve no doubt heard the news: a new proposed bill, C-61, will revamp Canada’s copyright laws if approved this fall, imposing a $500 fine for those who caught downloading unauthorized media (such as a song, movie or e-book) or face a fine of up to $20,000 for uploading (i.e. sharing) copyrighted material.
By now you’ve no doubt heard the news: a new proposed bill, C-61, will revamp Canada’s copyright laws if approved this fall, imposing a $500 fine for those who caught downloading unauthorized media (such as a song, movie or e-book) or face a fine of up to $20,000 for uploading (i.e. sharing) copyrighted material.
It’s Friday the 13th, which makes this news appropriately scary for those who download music, movies or TV shows from the likes of Bit Torrent sites or file-swapping services such as LimeWire.
The Conservatives have put forth a bill that will significantly tighten Canada’s copyright laws, which haven’t been updated in more than a decade, and therefore not taking into account the "digital" revolution.
In cased you missed all the details on this proposed bill, C-61, you can read more about it here.
Sync wants to know your thoughts on this.
Do you think this bill, if passed, is fair to protect content providers and it’s about time Canada steps up its fight against piracy?
Or do you think Canada is bowing to U.S. pressure to scare and strong arm Internet users into buying music and movies from legitimate sources. Will this bill stop you if it’s passed?
I agree the copyright laws are outdated and its probably time they have been re-vamped. However, Canada does charge a fee on blank recording media such as cd video media. Personally I feel this is just our govt bowing to US pressure. The Conservatives have always been bed mates with the US and that will never change. Will the new law stop downloaders? Probably not, people feel that if it is available on the internet…it should be free.
I believe this to be another device for our own government to grab more money from it's citizens.
I used to own a personal collection of CD'sof 1400 or more but in all of those I had purchased, I could only recall a small few that were enjoyable from the first track to the last or most of.
There are artists and there are one hit wonders.
The artists make their deals with large recording companies and the one hit wonders are looking for the quick buck with no regard to the true art of music which is so hard to find anymore. How much money is enough and where is it written that anyone artist should be wealthy beyond their own dreams.
Perhaps they should make music that is worthy enough to pay for as did artists from many years ago.
I would challenge one to create an entire album that is truly amazing from front to back.
The biggest shame is how they shutdown the original "Napster".
I also find it funny that no other was pursued after that with the same tamarity.
Maybe it is time to move on to the next great thing….
It is about time!
Funny to hear how people complain about not be able to get something for free anymore which never really belonged to them in the first place. What makes people think that they can just take something that is not their's? Just because somebody put it on the internet that did not have permission to put it there in the first place, doesn't mean you have the right to take it. This is why stores have windows and locked doors on their shops. If not, people would just "help themselves"! If you want a song for free, then sit down and write your own music! Then you can do whatever you want with it.
If you still can't get the picture, here is a scenario for you. You go in to work to get your paycheck but your boss says that he gave 97 percent of it to a bunch of people that said they needed the money. Who were they? Who knows?! They just took it.
The tax that was put on blank media will sure to disappear. Of course there won't be a refund for the tax prior to this law because everyone was downloading for free. This was an unfair way to go about this issue because some people actually obtain their music, movies or software legitimately.
This is also not Canada bowing down to pressure from the States. This is actually a worldwide phenomenum. The only reason why the States seem like they are the big pushers is because they have the biggest market for both sales and retail. Sweden had one of the worst raps as a safe haven for pirating and now they are conforming and cracking down. Even China is trying to conform! So as a Canadian, I sure wouldn't want to see our country being the next one to be labelled as the crackhouse, even though we are not far from it.
There are so many misconceptions by so many people about this. The only reason why an artist makes more money touring is because people are getting the recorded media for free. Yes, it is expensive now to buy the media but once people start paying for it, then it will start to come down in price because then it goes back to supply and demand. Investments will be made to get the media to you cheaper and better and the way you want it.
So basically Mommy took your bottle away and there is no more free milk. Try walking out of a store with your free milk and see if the store agrees with you that it should be free. Or the farmer that produced the milk. Or the guy that delivers the milk to the store. Put yourself in the other person's shoes. If people were honest, then we wouldn't need laws and locks!
This will stop all of us from sharing even our own personnal videos and music. This law will prevent any uploading or downloading. If you do upload or download even legal files you will be guilty until proven innocent. Just send us all back to the dark ages where all it took was one person saying you were guilty of some thing and you were put to death on those grounds alone. There are a lot of sites where you can upload and download music and other files from a person with their permission and it is free. Not everyone out their is rich and famous and greedy. There are a lot of people out there that want to be known for their music, art,and various talants that would never get a break because they lack finicial backing, do not have the look etc. We need to make laws that are more intuned to what the needs of the many are and not the wants of the few. The Canadan government could spend more time changing the law to protect our children from preditors, getting rid of the excessive pornograpy, and other damaging sites then worring about the rich not getting richer. The government of Canada needs to take care of its own illegal behavior before it takes on anything or anyone else. I personnal share my own personnal files with my family and friends that live all over Canada and in other countries. This world will always have law breakers and we will always have to protect ourselves from them.
Oh no! The multi-million dollar selling artist can't buy a third home or a 6th car because I donwloaded on of their songs! The fact remainds – Regardless of pirating or not, these people make way more money than they should for the work they do. There are people that work hours each day doing backbreaking labour, and get nothing. These people make a few rhyming sentences and they get millions and get to sit back on a permanent vacation. They aren't losing money they desperately need to survive by pirating, so it's really not as bad as people make it out to be. Everything nowadays is being done digitally, meaning you purchase movies games and music online with a credit card, and then you download them. A few examples are iTunes, direct2drive.com, Fileplanet.com, etc. What about the people that do this? They're going to be arrested too.
Does this new law if passed mean the Royalty tax levied on all blank recording media will be removed. This tax from my understanding was to go to the (Artists and such) for those copies of songs that people made.
The other point is what happens now to those collection on hard drive that where created to use on computer(ised) mulyi media centres.
Another point how will this effect radio and tv, where they say go to this address and download the/an item if they don't own it. As will as the information web sites, the way I understand this that it will be illegal to download anything that may copyrighted. Most material download by students for school is copyrighted, does that mean they will have to find the additional information to foot note everything they get, which is near impossible as they would know where the original actually came from.
I also think that this is just another way the government is blowing to the US, they did with every other thing, its bad enough that our ecconomics is based on what happens south of the boarder, they have a major storm or mishap and our prices on everything goes up because they don't have enough anymore
Why don't we just stop pretending that we're a sovereign country? We always just kneel down to kiss the American's @$$es anyway ( or actually their big bully corporations ). Government of the people, for the rich, by the rich. Way to go, Ottawa!!
Just a further example of your rights becoming privlages!!! Go ahead and make my children criminals!!!! Are not children who do not have a S.I.N. still soverign and fall under english common law..Or is it just automatic that the canadian government places us all under admistrative juristiction. Wake up people you have no rights in this country..only the ones allowed by this treasonist governments that we have been stuck with since the loss of our english common law rights back in the 1930's..check out http://www.detax.org (Eldon Warman) and have you eyes opened
Just another way to levy the taxes in this country. The rich get rich and the poor get poor. We are not a free country anymore, we minus will be with China. In fact I think that is where we are heading… This is total bull####.
Like the other guy said in his posting, you the GOVERNMENT better drop the taxes on recordable media, or you are falsifying the consumer once again… When will we all start to wake up and protest! We need to go to parliment, and protest. The more we drive them nuts the better…
I hate this Country! Our freedom's have been revoked, our privacy has been revoked. Everything is being taken away from us. Stop being scared Mr. Minister! Mr. Canada, We are not Americans! Nor will we ever want to lead that path… Canada became Canada for a reason! I had it with this S#$%!
Why are we all surprised by this… Mr. Harper, Mr. Bush's butt buddy, TELLS HARPER WHAT TO DO, AND HOW TO DO IT.
Can we all make sure NOT to vote conservative next time???? But tell that to western Canada!!!!!! Get your head out of your a**es!!!
I would like a refund on the tax I paid on recordable media and media devices!!!!
DONT BACK DOWN PEOPLE!!! It is only a matter of time that this PM will get his due!
NAZI HARPER!
this is not an issue of soveirgnty or political standing. It is simply a matter of controlling illegal activity. The people opposed to this dont care about their country's standing in the world they only care about how they will get their illegal music the easiest.
Funny. I work an hour and get paid for an hour. An "Artist" works for an hour, and makes a movie, CVD, CD, writes a book, etc… and they will get paid the rest of their lives, and complain about me when I take my hard earned money to buy a cd, and then make a backup copy. I usually, take the songs I want off a CD (which might be 3/13 songs, on a cd that can hold 25…), and burn a compilation to a new CD, so as to only have to listen to music I want to listen to, in the order I want to listen to. The originals, I store in a safe place. Now then, a burnt CD is convenient to take in the car, if it has a cd player, or on a walk around the block on a cd player. But to listen to via earphones in my pc, it is much more convenient to use Media Player to rip the music straight to the HDd, and merely delete those tracks I do not want. Similarly, if one has an MP3 or other such player, they are much more convenient to use on a long walk/jog or bike ride than a CD player. And only an idiot would take irreplaceable $25 CD's with him. I say irreplaceable, because many of the CD's in my collection (as well as many of my tapes) are irreplaceable. They sinply are not available any more. They are unsupported. How they "artists" (read corporations) can possibly say they want to retain a copyright right over media they no longer sell, or support is beyond me….
We need a class action lawsuit against all the artists, actors, singers, writer, authors, corporations, and various taxation ministries CCRA.ITC/etc. Why? Because of improper taxation. You unreasonably tax me on media which I might put my own creation on, and not an artist's. You then forbid me from making copies. Surely, a social contract was created when you taxed me willy nilly. You taxed me knowing I could make a copy. No other reason. So by taxing me, you gave me the permission/right to make a copy.
At the same time, you tax me forever, on my one hour's pay for one hour's work. Yet the artist, pays a small tax on his one hour's work, and a smaller tax on the forever income stream (royalties) derived from it, as these royalties usually go to the artist via Trusts, etc, and are taxed at a more advantageous rate. This is not just, moreover it is discriminatory, and fraudulent.
Artists must recall that their ability to earn a huge income off a single song is a new thing. For thousands of years, artists only earned income when they actually performed. They literally sang for their supper. The purpose of copyright law was to ensure that I could not own a small town newspaper, and reprint Mark Twain's Huck Fiin in istallments, pay him nothing, and not even give him credit for writing it. (Often people , back in thw early 1800's would take a work, "re-write" it, and then publish it as their own.) Copyright was not designed to ensure these people an income stream based on economic rent. It has been bastardized by the force of the corporations buy own, buy, and sell our politicians, hight officials, and high judges like commodities. One would think a prime minister was just a bowl of shreddies. (Well… that idea may not be far off base!)
I merely want my rights. Based on my ownership of something. I do not want to make 50,000 Hong Kong copies of something to sell in dollar stores. My voice should be as equal as an artist's if we lived in a democracy…
I fail to see how this will pass when they don't understand what the law will cover. A person can time shift a TV show but not save it in a library, Ok how many hours can they be in possession of it? and how do you document that? I don't do any downloading and feel bad for kids today, they are given all of this technology and then told they can't use it, however they understand more about how it works then the people trying to pass this law. Many mp3 players come with an FM tuner and a record feature, making an instant Mp3 out of what is being listened to will it now be illegal to press that button? better yet the manufacturer of the Mp3 player/recorder is breaking the law providing the machine right?. A person can also plug that player/recorder into any regular CD player and make Mp3's out of what is being played without using a computer,downloading, or transferring any files, it simply records making a completely new file with no information attached. I think they are targeting a certain group here but there are far too many interpretations of this new law, actually surfing the internet will be illegal because all websites contain copyrighted material and when you land on the site it is all downloaded to your temp internet folder or Cache so your in violation instantly. One final thought! as I understand it, it will be illegal to get around protection to get to copyrighted material, so what you kids should do is copyright your C-drive containing your personal media and writings and put up a firewall, then isn't anyone looking in it actually breaking the law? Oh and take a look back at the Canadian Privacy act apparently you are to be notified if anyone is going to be looking into your personal information. What I have read states that providing a means around protection will be illegal, well that means all recording devices, because if it plays it can be recorded. There is going to be allot of upset manufacturers of electronics. What a world we live in I am sure there is something else we should be focusing our attention on.
The new proposed laws also state that if you say, buy an Ipod, download your music and give that Ipod to a friend who may not have a computer to download all that music, you'll be breaking the law, too.
And don't buy anything from Sony BMG. My Trews cd is locked. Sorry, Trews. If you do decide to release another cd on BMG, I won't be buying it and I'll tell all my friends not to as well.
So then I guess the local library is illegal then???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Conservative turds!
I don't download but….. how can the Canadian government collect a per/media (DVD,CD,Cassette, etc) fee for copyright for the Artist's and then fine someone who has paid this fee.
Hi guy , remember this once and for all , politician don't have any balls but they have very long nose. Forget the copy right laws because it is just a dog and pony show by ottawa to please the music industry around the world. It is design to stop the so call musician from crying at the door step .Remember you can still buy a CD and share it with your friend and upload it into your friend media player or PC OR IPOD and nobody will know so stop worrying.
Hi: I agree with Ted how can they collect fee's for copyrighted items and than fine you if you use them. They dealt with this when they starting charging the fee's. I think this is going to hurt the music industry not help. I don't think this will pass they will need to come to their senses and think for themselves and not always follow the USA. T.T.
Just remember everyone – posting to blog is one thing, but don't forget to write your MP, the Prime Minister, Jim Prentice, etc.
"Devil's Advocatulary" – read the fine print of the bill. Technically you could get fined $20,000 for putting a LEGALLY-PURCHASED movie onto your iPod as it would require circumventing the DRM. It'll only cost me a $500 fine if I download it illegally (and get caught). Same goes for iTunes DRM. I buy the tracks but want to use them on a different brand of device. I'm opening myself up to a $20,000 fine.
It will do nothing to stop illegal downloading (the law will be largely unenforceable), but it will turn consumers who legally purchase movies and music into criminals for changing the format to play on a different device.