Tell us what YOU think Balanced Copyright means, the most well written submissions will be posted on the new BalancedCopyright site!
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Jake Daynes
Leader of the Pirate Party of Canada
Chef du Party Pirate du Canada
I have 2 concerns. #1; the idea that your IPS will spy on you and keep records for eternity of you breaking the law, for future civil or criminal prosecution use if required, if a copywriter who claims to be violated requests it. This stigma is a lifetime sentence even if you are innocent but haven’t the means, awareness or determination to challenge the accusation. The proposed bill’s standard of potential ‘guilt’ is well below that required by police to invade a suspected brutal murderer’s privacy for the purpose of gathering evidence. What gives? This provision of the law is one that Stalin’s KGB would have lustily approved of. #2; the fact is the majority of Canadians on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis violate the copyright law as it is currently proposed. Let’s face it, the behaviour of these Canadians is not going to change. By not addressing this issue many years ago the government has fostered behaviour that will now be criminal. The government that we have elected has turned on us like a vicious ungrateful beast. Dollars to donuts most, if not all, members of parliament have been in violation of the tenants of this proposed law at sometime in their lives. It’s too late. The horse is out of the barn. I predict that, like the GST, this law if passed will decimate the Conservative party for years to come as people, through the ordinary conduct of their daily lives, will feel the government is unjustly continually in their face because of a law that in a truly democratic country where majority view rules would never have been enacted or even dreamed up.
I find it ridiculous that the ISP must record information as
A) I feel that what I do online is private to myself and should not be recorded by others.
B) That this would put too much of a strain on the ISP’s funds and server space to keep said records. This would most likely increase services charges for us, the consumer, and nobody wants that!
I find it very strange and fearful that a supposed modernization of copyright actually protects specific types of proprietary software/hardware implementations whose only function is to restrict freedom.
I support real artist-persons whose original works needs to be protected but corporate-persons are undermining the constitution by seeking multi-national overrides. DRM-protection in this bill is unconstitutional.
im no expert but Change is required for all advancement of mankind, although many may fight it, it is necessary,
and no copyright law should protect specific business models or methods
In every country of the world today, different judges are arriving at different conclusions about the confluence of this technology and the rights that are enabled by it and the rights that are disabled by it. This is a dialogue that most certainly had not been completely anticipated, simplified and settled fourteen years ago when the WIPO treaty was signed.
And yet it remains the only reason for which the Government of Canada is telling us that we need to enact these radical laws, criminalizing the everyday bahavious of both Ministers, by their own admission, and millions of other Canadians. While they vaguely assert that they are protecting x-number of jobs, or that we just “need to modernize” our law, in the end they’ll say WE HAVE TO because we signed this treaty fourteen years ago,
Minister Moore will see me as a radical for suggesting this, but I don’t think we should ratify WIPO. I’d prefer that, if anything, we state our refusal to ratify WIPO, and call upon the netions of the world to begin a new round of consultation with a BALANCE of stakeholders, including the public, librarians, academics etc., and not just the Intillectual Property holders at WIPO.
If the anti-circumvention provisions were to be made contigent upon infringement, then the industry would have to prove that a particular copying was not covered by fair dealing, and they don’t even want to have to discuss fair dealing, let alone hash it out in court.
In effect, fair dealing will never be afforded the clarification and illumination that have traditionally come from the courts, because citizens will not be charged with copyright infringement anymore, but with the more serious, and easier to prosecute, anti-circumvention. Eventually fair dealing will dissapear as infringement, with its complicated exceptions, will no longer be pursued. It will instead be replaced by this new crime, anti-circumvention.
The Internet IS peer-to-peer right now, and it is a copying device. Notice-and-notice remakes the network so that publishing is one-way, so the consumer peer is subservient to the publishing peer. This spells the beginning of the end of citizen journalism, of the great democratic promise of this network topography. Who will still be interested in going online when all of the mainstream media comes out of the set-top box instead? If we all had web sites of our own, instead of just web pages on social networking web sites, then we’d understand what these “radical extremist” business types are trying to steal from all of us.
When millions of people can enjoy culture for free that leaves hundreds of millions of dollars in their pockets for other, more important things. And do not worry that this will be the end of culture. Music can now be professionally recorded, mixed and distibuted on any laptop. Top quality movie cameras are cheap, too. And writers, well, I for one am not getting paid for this. There is no way that there will ever be a shortage of intelligent expression now.
Bill C-32 is a bad law if it opens the door to spying on our Internet activities. If it means that only “signed” bands get to use the industry’s locks and lawyers. Or “mainstream” movies. If it changes the Internet to a place where having some information or software can ruin your life, and only approved culture and news is allowed through approved channels. Let’s not forget that fines imposed by the court are not dischargeable in bankruptcy here.
No, there is absolutely no need to “update” our laws to apply copyright to the Internet. This is an evil law by evil people and it must be stopped. They are the real thieves, stealing our rights, and our Internet.