What the heck do the dead need property for? Is this ancient Egypt or something? 50 years after death is a travesty. It’s monopoly, embodied in law. Copyright should be restricted to something closer to 20 years after creation. That way, an artist can get rich, have kids, put them into college, and make something else when they are retired, so they don’t ride the coat tails of their former artist glory.

If the bill allowed the use of DRM circumvention for personal use only (ie. I buy a dvd and then get around the DRM to put it on my ipod so I can watch it while commuting by train every day) I would fully support it.

Another thought:
This bill doesn’t address the legality of making copies of content from digital media that contains DRM, but doesn’t actually interfere with the DRM.

What happens if I pop a CD into a stereo, and then attach that stereo up to my computer through an Mbox and record the signal from the stereo using ProTools. Or go through a similar process with a DVD, Canopus box, and Final Cut (or more easily, with a dvd player/recorder with a firewire port). The DRM on the either disc would not have been altered or damaged in any way, yet a copy would have been made.

Another example of politicians and big companies not facing the realities of the digital age?

This is intentionally difficult to deflect, but I’ll give it a shot anyway.

I want to be able to play a movie I buy, any which way I want, anywhere and anytime. I understand I’m now supposedly just buying a license, and frankly I’m scared that anyone is defending that business model or efforts to effectively enshrine it into law.

You can argue that this isn’t such a big deal because if everyone hates DRM and loves format shifting, the free market will decide.. but will it? If a few major studios/labels control so much of the media, what will happen when they simply refuse to release catalogs except in DRM’d formats? Music seems to be going DRM-free, but movies? Blu-ray and HD-DVD both tried harder than DVD did, no DRM-free format is yet on the horizon.

No one seriously expects the next to be boycotted because the ‘free market’ hates DRM.

Honestly, it comes down to this: this bill would be fine if DRM anti-circumvention were not a part of it. Simply render illegal what should be illegal (commercial or even copying for friends), don’t protect a means of lock-in. Let the companies invest in the locks if they think it will help, but rendering encryption-breaking illegal isn’t going to stop any real crooks. For the Pacific Mall crowd, just slap massive fines on commercial copying – no one will dare speak out in defense of commercial copying, and the casual downloaders won’t even care.

Educational copies and the like are a topic I’ll leave to those better versed in that side of it.

(I know why you’re rushing to Ignatz’s defence. he still has those incriminating photographs from high school, doesn’t he? You’ll be pleased to know that I have some too.)

But seriously…

Actually, my issue with Bill C-61 is not so much about wanting to get my music for free, but that the entertainment industry is:

a) taking away certain freedoms that we used to enjoy before the digital age

b) telling the technology industry to cripple their systems solely for their benefit

The issue of music and movie piracy is a red herring that’s used to distract the public, and it’s not the first time that the entertainment industry has tried this tactic. It’s the same approach they used when they tried to make the VCR illegal back in the 1980s. They’d like you to forget that.

Watch this blog, because I’m going to build my case!

If they’re not going to do it, put it in the law that they can’t.

That’s all I ask.

Whereas suing the pants off some 13-year-old and going after their medium of distribution may (but likely will not) impact the Mr. Lau’s of the world.

What it will do, though, is make some parents and ISPs police their net traffic a little more rigorously. And it doesn’t take months of investigation, and it’s a lot easier to prosecute.
And the lawyers for the copyright holders can score an empty, symbolic “win” by pointing to the drop in P2P file-sharing traffic amongst 13-year-olds.

Meanwhile, Pacific Mall will still be loaded to the gills with pirated DVDs.

To the readers: Well done! Keep the discussion going! I will also pipe in.

As for Pizi’s point, you’re right, no one holds a gun to the person’s head & forces them to become a musician. But when they choose to do so, their property should be protected. I applauded Metallica (& finally became a fan) when they fought Napster & won. (However, if you saw their autobiographical documentary, Lars really came off as some kind of pompous ass. Huge turn off for new fans).

As for “Not So Ignatz’s” point, you’re right, enforceability is certainly an issue. However, I think I quoted someone in the know who emphasized: “It’s not like entertainment companies are about to go sue people…,[it’s] about people who are making libraries of massive infringement and making them available to their friends that they have over the Internet.” I believe that they intend on catching the Mr. Lau’s of the world instead of 13 yr olds making copies for their own IPODS.

This is exactly the dialogue that’s necessary. I think we need more opinions from everyone out there.

And the bootleggers do have a tiny amount of modesty, they don’t have the stuff hanging out in the store window all week. Generally it’s foreign bootlegs on weekdays and Hollywood stuff on the weekends.

Chck this quote from a not-quite-year-old Toronto Star article:

“We had a 21-year-old guy bragging that he was making $15,000 a weekend,” Mans said. “He had the potential to make $60,000 a month and we think he was in business for six months so he could have made over $300,000.”

So conceptually a guy could make 600k a year. What’s the fine? Here is a Globe & Mail article from January, 2007:

Take the example of one of the few film pirates Canada has actually arrested and prosecuted. Several months ago, police in Richmond, B.C., raided a small business in a strip mall, seizing thousands of counterfeit DVDs. It arrested the owner, 46-year-old Chiu Lau, who was fined (for his third time in three years) under the Copyright Act.

Last Remembrance Day, Lau pleaded guilty to 83 counts under the Copyright Act. He got a $5,000 fine and a 12-month conditional sentence. A further wrist slap? He was confined to his home from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

“Minimal fines of $5,000 or $6,000 are a joke,” says Frith. “These guys view it as a cost of doing business. If we raid them on Friday, they’re back in business on Monday morning.”

There’s your answer. $600,000 minus 1% still leaves an awful lot of room for lawyer’s fees and a good living besides.

Imagine you’re at the accordion city airport … and due to this bill, every piece of electronic equipment now has to be checked for contraband. Now let’s see what happens when the 2 hour line up to fly to NYC becomes a 6 hour lineup.

It’s the 21st century. One where companies make hardware that stores thousands and thousands of songs. Did any of those manufacturers ever think that everyone would pay $0.99 per song? I highly doubt it otherwise record labels, writers and artists wouldn’t be screaming as loudly as they are.

The internet changed the face of copyright enforceability and everyone knows it. The question is what to do about it.

A couple of years ago, there was a proposal to stop charging for music, film, television and all printed material all together. Instead, apply a national tax. Actuarial Sciences can easily figure out what average number of songs someone has, of the number of movies they see, or the amount of television someone watches. I mean … if statistics set the rate by which you pay your life insurance, car insurance and house insurance, why couldn’t they do that with the arts? It’d be a hell of a lot easier to manage and everyone would get paid.

The problem is … marketing. Record labels would no longer be able to say that “this is the hottest newest thing”. In the end, the people decide on what they want to pay for and that scares the hell out of the companies that are pushing for c-61 instead.

If you was musician, YOU make choice. No one forced you to be musician, so no one have oblige support you. Your choice. If you dont like that songs are in minds and there is no way to rip it from someone head, dont be musician.

If I was mafioso, i want law to protect my choice of to be mafioso? I have right to be mafioso and to be supported by others?

To roughly paraphrase the tech pundit, the cost of duplicating intellectual property is rapidly approaching zero. Regardless of anyone’s opinion as to whether this is good or bad, clearly a replacement business model or perspective needs to be found because guilt and the threat of litigation are not going to save the intellectual property brokers.

Personally, I suggest vinyl LPs, which have seen a massive boost in popularity in the past few years. People crave something “real” that can’t be copied.

Luckily for all of us, musicians are waking up to the notion that it’s not about selling their music anyhow; it’s about touring and T-shirts. The tunes are just an advertisement.