Most of my post have been about my trip to South Korea and Japan. That being said I’m a big technology enthusiast (ie geek or nerd) and some of the laws the Canadian government has been trying to implement regarding copyrights over the past few years have really bothered me.We as Canadians have been paying an additional tax on recordable media such as dvd, cd, vhs, and cassette tapes for years now in order to cover the cost of assumed “copyright infringement”. That’s to say they assume you’re going to copy some material such as music, videos and share them. Now this is an overly simplified view of the subject and the law. There are several things at play here, including Hollywood and the US. However I feel at the end of the day this is like almost everything else in our world about money.
The right to backup and share media and information should be universal. Profiting from sharing the media should not. Let me use one example: Let’s say you recorded your favorite television show on a vhs tape. Your good friend was at work that day and didn’t get to watch that particular episode. You go ahead and lend it to him or her so that they can watch the episode. Most people would agree that there is nothing wrong with this.
Now let’s say you record the same television show and then make multiple copies and start selling some of the copies to make money. This would be illegal and again I think most people understand this.
Now over the past few years several “industry ministers” have tried to implement strict laws (and severe penalties) that would prevent the average person from performing simple things such as recording your favorite television show using your computer or making a copy of one of your movies/games for personal use. If you’ve ever owned a dvd or cd you know that scratches can ruin them. Making a copy of the original disc and using it so that it becomes scratched rather than the original would be illegal under some of the proposed new laws.
The bottom line here is money. They want you to keep paying in order to watch something you’ve already bought. If you bought the movie once in you’re lifetime, why should you have to pay to ever watch it again? (assuming no new material has been added?).
Recently Canadian heritage minister James Moore called the Canadians concerned about these copyright laws “‘Extreme Radicals”.
Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. He has been a vocal supporter of the reform of these laws and in my opinion the one resounding voice for Canadians. On his website he list the so called “Extreme Radicals” that James Moore talks about which include:
- * Liberal MPs
- * NDP MPs
- * Bloc MPs
- * Green Party
- * Canadian Consumer Initiative
- * Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada
- * Canadian Association of University Teachers
- * Canadian Federation of Students
- * Canadian Library Association
- * Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright
- * Retail Council of Canada
- * Canadian Bookseller Association
- * Documentary Organization of Canada
Those are some pretty crazy radicals: I remember back during the Canadian Library association’s revolution things got pretty crazy here in Canada! ;-)
Here I quote an article form techdirt which linked to the video in question:
“He [Heritage Minister James Moores] clearly says “the only groups opposed to this are really two groups of radical extremists.” Later on he refers to complaints about the bill — which are coming from thousands of concerned Canadian content creators and citizens — as being “babyish.” “
Now, shockingly the minister in question James Moores denies he ever used those words. We’ll welcome to the 21st century Mr Moores, here’s the video of you calling the average Canadian an extreme radical:
I’d like to end this post with a few things which I need to say:
- It was written quickly and doesn’t properly do justice to the subject. If this is a subject that interest you start learning why this is important with the links below.
- You can find a lot of information on Michael Geist website. I would like to thank him for all his hard work over the years.
- This is a subject every Canadian should care about. Sure it might not seem as important as more pressing issues but bad laws such as the ones being proposed by this bill could have serious impact to libraries, educational materials and what you are allowed to do with products you’ve purchased and own.
- Get informed on copyright reform and Speak out here
