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

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Do we (Suspects in general) begin to reach a new level in the Blogosphere when we start quoting each others' blogs?

[c9.livejournal.com]

Yes. You've just reached the ninth circle.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Alternate answer:

Yes, but it's a lower level, not a higher one.

[cap-hill-latte.livejournal.com]

Hmm...an excuse for Canada to adopt European media standards perhaps? Then again, I have zero clue about what’s going on in the DRM world across the Atlantic.

[c9.livejournal.com]

"Dear Canadians,

Every piece of electronics is now going to be incompatible with all your old electronics, and cost more due to shipping it across the ocean. Oh, and you can't buy Hollywood BluRay DVDs until six months after everyone in the US can.

Signed,
The Man."

I think that'll be a non-starter.

[cap-hill-latte.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn’t mean that literally. :-). Though, I think it would be an interesting experiment to try to get off of the media “grid”. Pick and choose your hardware and content based on what appeals to you, and your taste for DRM.

Of course, Ben would be the only person in Canada with the patience to do it. :-).

To your “dear users, everything is broken” point, this is sort of going to happen soon when gov’ts start turning off non-HD TV signals. Dresden (I think, it could have been another city in Germany) did this about a month ago.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Good point. April 2009 for the US, no date set for Canada yet.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

I don't have any figures to back it up, but I'm pretty sure that the US is the largest single importer of consumer electronics in the world. If their laws say that thou shalt have scary DRM built-in, the hardware companies will be forced to oblige, and they won't pour resources into "DRM'd for US use" and "non-DRM'd for everyone else's use" bifurcation of their product lines, especially when one of the major players, Sony, has a vested interest in supporting and "enhancing" DRM whenever possible.

Sony has been trying to lock people into their hardware products and out of their software products using DRM and hardware (in)compatibility since the '70's. That won't change now, and if this legislation were to pass, it would be a major win for them, in that they'd now have a legal basis on which to be evil.

[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

[thespos]

This just makes no sense.

[c9.livejournal.com]

(c'mon now, sing along)

"Money money money makes the world go 'round..."

[thespos]

Unfortunately, none of my representatives are on the subcommittee reviewing this bill... I may have to contact the chairman.

[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.