Jared McAteer’s Blag - jaredmcateer.com

Since the election is coming up I think it’s important to remind everyone of Bill C-61, the copyright law introduced by M.P. Prentice at the end of the spring. It is a draconian bill meant to appease the American lobby in Canada (CRIA among others.)

Take a look at the following scenarios and see if you’ve ever done something like it.

Scenario 1:

Jim and Josee live in a Calgary suburb together with their three children Stephen (age 16), Rona (age 10), and Diane (age 4). Jim is the chief librarian at the National Energy Library, while Josee teaches media and communications at a local high school.

This post focuses on Jim. Soon after he arrives into the office on Monday morning, he is contacted by a researcher located in the field who asks him to track down an article and to email an electronic copy as soon as possible. Jim finds the article, scans and sends it via email. After work, he drops into the local HMV and purchases a DVD copy of the movie Juno. At home, he transfers a copy of the movie to his video iPod for viewing on an upcoming business trip.

If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, Jim is a criminal.
source: A Week in the Life of The Canadian DMCA: Day 1

Scenario 2:

Rona is a huge American Idol fan, faithfully watching each episode and buying CDs released by former contestants with her savings. Last January, Jim set the family’s PVR to tape and retain each episode to allow Rona to watch how the contestants progressed. That night, Rona records an Internet-only broadcast of American Idol highlights on her personal computer. She also asks her brother Stephen to transfer songs from her newest CD to her computer. The CD is copy-protected, but Stephen uses a circumvention program to transfer the music files.

If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, Jim, Rona and Stephen are criminals.
source: A Week in the Life of The Canadian DMCA: Day 2

Scenario 3:

In the morning, Josee teaches a class on media in the digital world. The class is conducted in a distance-learning classroom and includes both her students and students from a school in Edmonton using Alberta’s SuperNet network. This is the second year that she has run the course and she is using the same lessons, which include extensive copies of articles for course materials. In the afternoon, Josee teaches a communications class, making use of a website that features a copyright and an “all rights reserved” notice. A student in the class presents a research assignment that features short excerpts from a DVD copy of the movie Broadcast News and passages that are cut-and-pasted from an electronic book that contains a digital lock. Josee is a big Calgary Flames fan. The Flames are playing that night with the game broadcast on pay-per-view. Josee has a dinner commitment, but decides to buy the game and record it with her PVR to watch when she gets home.

If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, Josee is a criminal.
source: A Week in the Life of The Canadian DMCA: Day 3

Scenario 4:

Diane, who is four years old, is a huge fan of the popular TV character Dora the Explorer. For her birthday, she received four Dora DVDs. Given Diane’s habit of scratching them, her dad has begun to create backup versions. That day, Diane brings home her kindergarten class photo, which was taken by a local photographer. Josee digitizes the photo and sends a copy to Diane’s grandmother.

If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, Diane is a criminal.
source: A Week in the Life of The Canadian DMCA: Day 4

Scenario 5:

Stephen is a big music fan. Tonight, he is going with his girlfriend to see his favourite band in concert. He has purchased every CD issued by the band. To get ready for concert, he downloads a live version of one of his favourite songs that was released commercially in Europe (it is not available in Canada) that he finds on a file-sharing network. The song is downloaded to an external hard drive that he uses to store his music. While on the network, one hundred songs on the hard drive were available in his shared folder for others to download, though none were. At his girlfriend’s request, he also copies three of the band’s best songs onto a CD to play during the drive to the concert. He gives the CD to his girlfriend as a gift.

If the Canadian DMCA becomes law, Stephen is a criminal.
source: A Week in the Life of The Canadian DMCA: Day 5

All of these scenarios were created by Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa, he’s an expert in Copyright law.

Technorati Tags: Copryright, Prentice, Harper, Industry, Canada, Bill C-61, Conservative, Election, DMCA

Popularity: 18% [?]

Minister of Industry Jim Prentice recently introduced the Bill designated C-61 into the house of parliament here in Canada. The bill for every intent and purpose is a clone of the United States’ DMCA with extra draconian clauses tacked on for good measure. Prentice and party are doing their worst best to try and put a good spin on this horrible bill but not too many people are buying it. Both the NDP and Liberal parties have overtly criticised the bill. Copyright experts such as Michael Giest and Howard Knopf have pointed out until they are blue how this bill is wrong, the public spoke out, yet Prentice proceeded anyways. We can only hope his fate is parallel to the last couple folks that tried to push the American agenda.

I’m beginning to rant and that’s not what I want, I started this article to bring to your attention some work done by a fellow named Felix G.; he put together a document showing exactly how the Canadian Copyright Act is going to be affected by this bill should it pass as it currently stands. If you have the time and legalese interest to read it, it’s a very chilling outlook.

If you don’t feel like sorting through the Copyright Act you can also check on the same page linked above, a side-by-side comparison of of Richard Stallman’s Right to Read and the new bill. The scary thing is that almost every prediction of the worst case scenario outlined in Right to Read would come true in.

Popularity: 39% [?]

Update: Good news, Minister Angus, NDP has updated the Facebook group to advise that Minister Prentice was not present at today’s sitting, he has one more change tomorrow to present the bill before Parliament closes shop for the rest of the year! Minister Angus also advises that they may not even sit tomorrow. So we may have more time to put a stop to this bill and force Minister Prentice to rethink his position. This does not mean we can slack off!

This is a huge issue to me that every Canadian should be concerned about. Minister Prentice is pushing a Bill through parliament that is rumoured to be like the US DMCA on crack. Most people don’t know what the ramifications are of this, I suspect not even our government. The short story is that anything copyrighted you want to use under current fair use is probably going to be illegal. Want to make a copy of that music on your ipod for your car? That’s illegal. Want to use a snippet from a television in your review of the show? That’s illegal. Want to criticise a peice of work? You bet your bottom that’s a illegal.

The new bill the Minister Prentice is introducing is rumoured to have no provisions for fair use. What it enables the various industries (CRIA, MPAA, etc) to do is put digital locks on their software, DRM, and no matter how weak those locks are it is illegal to try and circumvent them. This also means that if you have say an iPod and a year from now you buy a Microsoft Zune and you want to transfer those files over to your new device, you can’t! This is because iTunes uses a proprietary DRM that is incompatible with Microsoft’s DRM. Under the new law you will be required to purchase a new copy of the music you have already bought.

What this is going to enable is coalitions like the CRIA* to litigate as a business model. Like in the United States they will begin suing file sharers for thousands of dollars per song under the guise that it is necessary to punish people for infringing their copyright so excessively that they must essentially declare bankruptcy for illegally downloading a single alubm.

* Note: that the CRIA is mainly comprised of American recording labels, namely EMI, SONY, Warner Music and Universal. It is essentially the Canadian chapter of the RIAA

Find out what you can do after the jump…

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Popularity: 74% [?]

Apple has previewing what their marketing team is calling iTunes Plus. It is their experiment with EMI to provide DRM-free music to consumers. For an extra $0.30 (USD) you can download music from the iTunes store with no DRM and an increased bitrate of 256bps (that’s double of the DRM enabled music.) Anyone that knows anything knows that the $0.30 hike is not because of the extra bitrate they put into it. More likely the added cost is to appease EMI and grab a little extra profit, but to me personally I don’t care.

I don’t know why they call it iTunes Plus, I would have called it iTunes Minus (the CRAP) or iTunes Done Correctly but whatever I’m ok with whatever spin their marketers have to put on it, and it still puts a negative spin on the DRM enabled music. I will actually be purchasing music through the iTunes store now, I refused to beforeDRM.

To access the preview you will need the latest iTunes (v7.2) just open up the iTunes store and there will be a link, it’s hard to miss. It might take you back to your webbrowser and ask you to open up an application (it opens iTunes to the iTunes Plus section of the iTunes store.)

Technorati Tags: Apple, EMI, iTunes Plus, iTunes, DRM

Popularity: 95% [?]

Forgive my use of Fox/CNNs favourite copout but it looks at thought this may be a significant step towards more sane times. At least in regards to buying music. EMI and Apple have announced that they will be making music available through the iTunes store free of DRM.

For those that aren’t familiar with DRM or don’t really understand that the ramifications of this decision are I will explain. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, it is encompasses many means that content providers use to restrict how you, the customer, use digital content. In music, this is most often used to prevent you from making a copy and “lending” it to your friends. But as a result also prevents you from lending music to yourself, if you have music that plays on your iPod, it won’t play on your Zune (hypothetical situation, you lose your iPod and decided to try the Zune, or more likely vice versa.) Nor can you play it in your MP3 enabled car. There are ways around DRM but if you live in the United States or another country with similar laws to the DMCA you are committing a crime when you do this. In Canada we have no such laws but it is an annoyance and a slap in the face. Now that you have a little background let’s get back to the story.

Certainly this is cause for celebration but some of you may be wondering, “What’s the catch?” You’d be certainly warranted in your caution, but it’s not so bad, the price of the music goes from $0.99 (USD) per song to $1.29 (USD). While this may seem bad wait a minute before you protest. In order to appease the masses that will definitely be upset with a 30 cent increase in price they’d also thrown in an additional 128 bit… rates… (ok that doesn’t quite work.) Apple has increased the sound quality two fold, from 128 Kbit/s to 256 Kbit/s. In audio terms this is from “eh” quality to almost no difference from CD quality, good enough for all but the most serious audiophiles. You’ll experience the rumbling lows and the piercing highs on your stereo equipment (be it in your home or your car) that you may have found previous songs form the iTunes store to be lacking.

The only real downside I can see is that EMI will not be replacing their DRM enabled music, rather the new DRM free and slightly more expensive but higher quality music will be sold along side with the lower quality, less expensive, crippled music. I can understand their position in this decision in that they are testing the waters, they are after all the first large music label in States to be doing this. I suspect they will eventually move over all the way once they see their sales increasing (personal prediction based on the truthiness)

Technorati Tags: DRM, Apple, EMI, iTunes, Music, AAC

Popularity: 96% [?]