This afternoon the Conservative government introduced a new copyright bill in the House of Commons.
The last time the Tories tried to pass new copyright legislation was two years ago. Jim Prentice was the Minister in charge back then and he was widely seen as being in the pocket of American interests. In fact, the Bill he originally introduced was so backward, so heavily favoured towards huge American media conglomerates that the public outcry was simply impossible to ignore. As a result of the outcry, the Conservatives put the legislation on the back burner and, last summer, went on a whirlwind tour across the country soliciting public opinion and feedback on copyright.
Lots of us spoke out, hundreds of thousands, during these public hearings and it seemed like the government was truly listening. However, today’s Bill indicates that while some of what we said got through, serious and fatal flaws remain in the law.
Today’s Bill renders a lot of things in a much better form that its predecessor. There are much-needed provisions for education, parody and satire. There’s special “YouTube” protection and a pledge to revisit the Bill every 5 years. There is more appropriate and reasonable provision for copying CDs and time-shifting media on PVRs. But the fatal blow comes in the form of the “digital lock”.
The concept of the digital lock was primarily what sunk the Conservatives copyright ship the first time around. In the many rounds of hearings which they held last summer this was the major complaint that Canadians voiced, but it was somehow ignored.
The idea of a digital lock is that a piece of media, which you buy from a store (whether online or retail) can be “locked” preventing it from being copied or reproduced. This could be in the form of a copy-protected CD, for example. You bought the CD but since it has a digital lock, this new law would make it illegal—a criminal offense—to copy that CD onto your computer or your iPod. No matter how flimsy the lock is, or how easy it might be to circumvent it.
In my opinion, and in the opinions of lots of other Canadians, the concept of the digital lock is a step backwards. iTunes, the be all and end all of online music purchasing, has done away with digital locks on their music because it was doing their reputation and their sales harm. Other online retailers have taken similar steps. Consumers don’t want to purchase a song or a book or a movie that they can only access in one form, in one place, or only during a certain time period.
The digital lock provision of the proposed copyright law is nearly a fatal blow because it circumvents all other provisions. None of the education provisions, none of the fair dealing provisions, none of the consumer protection provisions apply if the piece of media has a digital lock.
Don’t get me wrong, from all accounts this Bill is much improved from the last one we saw. It’s a far-cry from the American DMCA which opened up the door to multi-million dollar lawsuits against poor students, grandparents and babies down South. This is a much more Canadian piece of legislation than the last attempt at copyright reform, but it’s still broken. Maintaining the digital lock regime means perpetuating a culture in which the consumer doesn’t own the music or movies or books that they’ve bought, they’re simply borrowing. If that’s the culture you’re interested in living in then carry on.
But for the rest of us, it’s time to start paying attention. A good place to begin is by following Michael Geist’s blog. He’s a very well-respected and level-headed law professor from Ottawa. He writes extensively about copyright and Internet law and he knows what he’s talking about. He has a Facebook group and a very informative website called Speak Out on Copyright. We need to let our voices be heard by writing to our Members of Parliament, to the Heritage and Industry Ministers, to the Prime Minister, and talking about it. The last time we were on the cusp on copyright reform active Canadians made sure it was going to happen the right way. Those people haven’t gone away, and aren’t going to, until copyright reform is done properly.
I’ll be keeping you up to speed and writing lots about this here, as it progresses, so stay tuned.
The digital locks kill any improvements this bill has. They make it impossible to enforce copyright limits since the encryption doesn’t expire with the copyright. They leave consumers beholden to the right management system provider as in the case of Walmart shutting down their DRM servers. Anyone who bought music from them could no longer access their songs without breaking the digital lock. With these legal protections digital locks make it possible for companies to sell us back the rights we otherwise have using even the most simplistic lock. This is already happening in several cases but the worst one is Rogers who encrypts their digital cable. This means recording it with a PVR requires their permission. Rogers charges a monthly fee for that permission. Under this law time shifting is explicitly permitted except when doing so would break a digital lock so Rogers will have carte blanche to go on charging their monthly fee.
It wouldn’t take a major change to fix the problem. All that’s really needed is a provision that makes breaking a digital lock legal when used for the lawful purposes spelled out in the rest of the bill. Such a change would mean the bill was still WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) compatible and stop corporate rights from trumping personal ones. Entertainment companies would still be able to aggressively go after those who make copies available since that isn’t permitted anywhere in this bill.
There are already several provisions that allow breaking digital locks, including for encryption research, the perception impaired, computer security (thank you Sony), loss of personal information (again thank you Sony) and software interoperability. It seems pretty reasonable to add device, format and time shifting and backups to that list.
I think you’re forgetting something else to take into account here.
Copyright bills were put forward in both 2005 and 2008 and both were horrible. Do you know what happened? They weren’t quite put on the backburner, they died when parliament died. I’d say these bills are a great tool for Canadian politicians to appear tough on these issues to get the American media companies off their backs, but then before they get a chance to pass just dissolve parliament, and it’s gone. Said American companies don’t pay enough attention to Canadian politics to really notice this, and you don’t piss off the Canadians too much because you don’t actually do anything. I think we should all be on the lookout for an election coming soon.
Soon you’ll have a wife whose salary depends on laws that protect the rights of those who create.
[...] little over a month ago I warned you of the upcoming copyright reform proposed by our politicians. I warned you that it imposes certain restrictions on how you own [...]