From Michael Geist:
PMO Issues The Order: Canadian DMCA Bill Within Six Weeks
The bill is not expected until June, but it will have dramatic repercussions once introduced. First, the bill represents a stunning reversal from the government's seeming shift away from C-61 and its commitment to a bill based on the national copyright consultation. Instead, the consultation appears to have been little more than theatre, with the PMO and Moore choosing to dismiss public opinion. Second, after adopting distinctly pro-consumer positions on other issues, Moore has abandoned that approach with support for what may become the most anti-consumer copyright bill in Canadian history.This is the part where people usually write in and say, 'wow, what can we do about this!'
And my answer, this time is, not a Goddamn thing. You're Canadian. You're just going to sit back and eat it. And they know it.
The fuck with the funny coloured money & the own the podium shit. We really want to save money, let's just make it official: outsource governance to Washington.
We'd still get screwed on copyright, but hey, they have a health care bill now at least.
10 rumbles:
People protest effectively when they understand the issues, it hits home, and there's an organized effort. Lots of anti-HST and pro-marijuana activity round these parts. C-10 was a lightning rod. Implying an entire nation is lazy and stupid: not the most effective way to rally the troops.
Thing is, Diane, I don't think I'm trying to rally the troops anymore.
On copyright -- I wrote letters to MP's. I appeared at a copyright town hall & spoke. I wrote several columns here. I did radio interviews about it. I submitted written consultation to the government. I wrote the Industry Minister. I demonstrated. And in the end, we are getting the same law that existed before the "consultation."
As for the causes you see out west, well... Marijuana laws are about to be toughened more significantly than they've been since the Supreme Court made Medical Marijuana legal ten years ago. And the HST debate is like the GST debate from the 80's. Never went anywhere. People didn't care enough. They sat back and took it.
I don't know what it takes to rouse Canadians. But that's the point. I don't know what it takes to rouse Canadians, outside of an empty beer commercial boast or a hockey fight or a girl skating through the tears of her mom dying.
Point is, I think my fight's gone.
This copyright battle's been ongoing in its present state for how long, now? Three years? Four? Each time they make a show of trying to push the US DMCA into Canadian law, they keep getting pushback from us via the Fair Copyright campaign and other routes as well. The campaign's still on.
So, no.
I'm still not sitting back and taking it.
I'm not saying you need to rally the troops. I'm saying you have a voice and this is how you choose to use it? You want to pretend protest has never changed anything here, whatever, but if I didn't already know and love you, this post would put you squarely in "oh man, do I have to be on the side of bigots?" territory. You wanna be the Richard Dawkins of copyright?
Denis, seriously, you're conflating the government's tin ear with Canadians being timid. The last time this issue came up people *were* protesting it, just like you were. Is it somehow their fault the government is composed of shits who can't take 'We don't want this' as a refusal?
You're saying that their bringing this up again is going to burn the fight out of us.
Really?
The troops are already self-rallying.
I've seen too many Royal Commission Reports with sensible recommendations gather dust & have nothing come of them.
The money spent on that Copyright Consultation last year was obscene. All that money. For nothing.
Others can certainly rally. But what I know is that even while it was going on, there were very few people actually considering what a new model to benefit artists as well as people would be. It's a hard concept. And rather than do any hard work, they're defaulting to pressure from lobbies and the United States. Same as it ever was.
I'm saying fight if you want. I just don't see the point anymore. I think the fix is so irretrievably in that maybe it's time we all really did just do what they've trained us to do...fight for our crumbs and kill anyone who comes close enough to try to take them.
By kill I mean metaphorically.
For now, anyway.
Depressing.
Welcome to my world, DMc.
S'okay Denis, it's alright.
I understand, there's a whole lot of tired people who've fought the fight for so long and watched it crumble. My dad, as much as I love'm, says the same thing: You can't fight City Hall.
Except we already have and we've already won. Maybe it was only that one time. Maybe.
But we did it before, we can do it again.
I get it though, it's hard to be vigilant 'cause the bad guys can just starve us out or sneak in the back door when we're not looking.
And, no doubt about it, a government that only 'listens' to its people when they say what they want to hear and go behind their back when they don't... them's are some bad guys.
Your fuming rage is completely justified. And I know it's hard to keep the fire stoked for so long.
So, we'll take it from here.
Just... cheer us on from the bleachers, okay?
Here is a question to hash out loud: If you were the government, what policy would you be following on Copyright?
It is a really messy area of policy. And even those who are steeped deep in it have a hard time telling what side each other is on.
I am a technology person whose first interest is to ensure that technology ownership rights are protected. The greatest threats come from non-owner locks on devices -- blah, blah, blah -- see http://flora.ca/own This, more than infringement, is a threat to actual authors getting paid for their work -- and not just software authors.
Because I'm anti-DRM, I've been labeled an anti-copyright crusaider as well as being a "consumer" advocate in the copyright debate by those who like to claim this is copyright holders vs consumers.
I opposed C-60 and C-61 *because* I want authors to get paid, not because (as so often lobbed at me) I don't.
I've also written how we need to be careful with compulsory licensing (Levies like the private copying levy) as when mis-applied they can just as easily reduce revenue as supplement.
Politicians, with the exception of composer/performer/writer/etc Charlie Angus, are even less informed than the folks we see commenting on blogs.
I think we need to help clean up the message. We have a Heritage Minister who is unaware that in the music industry there are 3 copyright holding groups: composers and neighbouring-rights holders of performers and "makers". The record labels represent a subset of "makers", and yet the Minister claimed when this subset opposed the expansion of the private copying regime to newer devices that "the music industry" opposed it.
This is the Heritage Minister, the Minister whose most responsible for Copyright law in Canada (ignoring the Copyright act itself that says it is the Industry Minister).
I'm 9 years in this debate, and there are others that have been in longer. While time has progressed, what I've heard from politicians and other policy makers suggests that the debate hasn't progressed.
(sorry for the rant.... :-)
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