A quick update on the Canadian DMCA.
You can read the text of the bill now.
Reuters has an early write-up that you can read.
Geist also has one, but good luck getting to his site right now. I’ll include one of his five “high level points”:
The digital lock provisions are worse than the DMCA. Yes – worse. The law creates a blanket prohibition on circumvention with very limited exceptions and creates a ban against distributing the tools that can be used to circumvent. While Prentice could have adopted a more balanced approach (as New Zealand and Canada’s Bill C-60 did), the effect of these provisions will be to make Canadians infringers for a host of activities that are common today including watching out-of-region-coded DVDs, copying and pasting materials from a DRM’d book, or even unlocking a cellphone. The liability for picking the digital lock is up to $20,000 per infringement.
While that is the similar to the U.S. law, the exceptions are worse. The Canadian law includes a few limited exceptions for privacy, encryption research, interoperable computer programs, people with sight disabilities, and security, yet Canadians can’t actually use these exceptions since the tools needed to pick the digital lock in order to protect their privacy are banned. In other words, check the fine print again – you can protect your privacy but the tools to do so are now illegal. Dig deeper and it gets worse. Under the U.S. law, there is mandatory review process every three years to identify new exceptions. Under the Canadian law, its up to the government to introduce new exceptions if it thinks it is needed. Overall, these anti-circumvention provisions go far beyond what is needed to comply with the WIPO Internet treaties and represents an astonishing abdication of the principles of copyright balance that have guided Canadian policy for many years.
If you want to easily send a letter to your MP, there’s a very simple system for doing so at Copyright For Canadians. You select your riding, and it pops up a template letter that you can send or edit. If you’re reading this, and you’re Canadian, please do at least this, if nothing else.
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