Scary Laws

[c9]

Intellectual Property Law meets the greed of Hollywood. Be afraid!

"To simplify, any device that can record video will be illegal to import or purchase in a year, if it doesn't obey DRM." [Digital Rights Management, a category of anti-copying rules and software --Cam]

"In plain English, [Copy Prohibited Content] means that your recorded program, should you start watching it an hour after it's done recording, will start to delete itself 30 minutes later. Think of the fun you and your family can have trying to keep ahead of the deletion queue!"

We should all be worried about this because US copyright and IP laws inevitably appear in Canada as well, often in identical form. And we're not big enough to warrant special shipments of electronics, or different DVD releases... for all intents and purposes, Canada is merely another portion of the United States for Hollywood!

To quote simplisticton:

Your VCR: illegal. Your PVR: illegal. Like to watch movies on your PSP or your PDA? Illegal. Video iPod: you better believe that's illegal.

Comments

[bartok.livejournal.com]

copyright laws are quite different in Canada, hence the decision a couple of years back that downloading was not illegal north of the border.

[c9.livejournal.com]

That's often cited, but the laws have changed since then in several ways, and new legislation has been proposed in this area too.

Some links if you're curious:
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1118271756635_30

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Copyright law per se doesn't enter into this... this legislation would have far-reaching consequences on what you physically can do with hardware you own... imagine having to pay to "unlock" the rewind feature of your PVR on a show-by-show basis. Or renting a DVD that you can only play once from start to finish before it stops working. And if you don't like any of this and modify the hardware you bought, that you own you are not merely a violator of copyright, but an instant criminal.

This is the thin end of a wedge that begins the Sovietization of American society: you will no longer have the option of abiding by all the laws, because the laws are so byzantine that you end up breaking them as a matter of course. Ever tape anything off the radio, or tape a sporting event to watch it later? You're a criminal in the eyes of the RIAA/MPAA.

Saying "It can't happen here" is being disingenuous at best, especially when it comes to copyright law. Almost all industrialized nations have wide-ranging and very closely interwoven international agreements governing copyright, and when the world's largest producer AND consumer of copyrighted information makes law, that law is automatically in effect throughout the world. Sadly, copyright is not one of those things that market forces can control absolutely. If legislation gets there before market forces, it can have an astoundingly chilling effect on innovation, creativity, and society.

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Whew. Glad I got that out of my system.