The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
I guess they managed to pull one over on everyone. Only a few weeks ago, I wrote about how it seemed that we had dodged a bullet. That as a nation, we were mad enough that the federal government had withdrawn its proposed copyright legislation. But now, there are few other things in the technology world that people want to talk about. The Conservative minority government has introduced Bill C - 61 into the House of Commons. This is the proposed law that will completely change copyright regulations in Canada. But the problem is that people are furious with this move. The Facebook group that was instrumental in holding this bill back in December has swelled by another 10,000 members since last week alone to over 50,000. Stories about these changes on the CBC website have brought in over 1,000 comments from a lot of very angry people. As well, many artists and bands have spoken out against the bill. So what is actually in it? Downloading music or movies from the Internet without paying for them will be declared explicitly illegal, something it is not now. If you download files, you may face charges of $500. But if you upload copyrighted files to the Internet (something you are probably doing if you are sharing your Limewire library for example), you may face charges of up to $20,000. The same would go for books, games, photos, etc. ÊUnlocking a cell phone, allowing it to be used with different software or features it did not ship with, or unlocking a phone to try to circumvent roaming charges, will leave you on the wrong side of the law. ÊAlso, people who have personal video recorders to record television programs will be facing more difficulty in the future as networks will be allowed to place broadcast flags on their programs preventing you from recording them. Again, if you have software which will record the programs anyway, you could be charged. I am not against changes to the copyright laws. In fact, I believe that changes are needed. My difficulty with these laws is that they are more restrictive then the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US that has caused so many problems there. In fact, researching the timeline behind these laws, many people believe that the Canadian government was directly and highly pressured to pass these kinds of regulations by the American government. These laws are to be enforced by the companies themselves. The government will not be enforcing them, but they will be leaving it up to the companies themselves to collect evidence and take people to court in order to pursue fines. In many ways this has proven to be worse. The companies involved in the production of media are thriving on scare tactics. Many people have been sued who have not been involved with the downloading of copyrighted files, and some people have even died and yet managed to be taken to court. The companies are completely hoping to scare consumers away from any move toward new media and new ways of distributing their products. Instead of actually working with consumers, they are attempting to tie people into models from the past. These changes are not law yet. The complete storm of opinion that rose immediately seems to have stunned the government and last week they were quiet, watching the landscape. Your opinion is your own, but many things that people are already doing and which have already taken root in the way that Canadians interact with media will be sorely threatened by this bill. If you have any opinion about this bill, I urge you to get in touch with our MP, Tina Keeper, or the Minister of Industry, Jim Prentice. E-mail has little effect on politicians and a letter can be sent to the Canadian parliamentÊ at no cost to this address: Tina Keeper House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 Do your own research. Be informed. But take action if you have an opinion. ([email protected]) Tech Notes runs Mondays.
