Canada Gets its own DMCA
Last week Jim Prentice finally did what he has been threatening to do since last fall, he introduced the Canadian version of the DMCA. As usual Michael Geist has been doing a good job publicizing details of the legislation and so has CBC’s Search Engine, who conducted an interview with Jim Prentice.
Poor Jim didn’t do so well appearing downright confused about the bill stating the issues are “arcane” and that the “bill is very large”. Jim, it doesn’t matter how large the bill is. If you are going to impose it on us, you better know it inside and out!
Jim also tried to dismiss the impact of the law by saying enforcement wasn’t likely because the statutory damages wouldn’t be enough of a motivating factor to sue consumers and that digital locks on content won’t impact consumers because “market forces” will prevent media companies from using them.
If this bill is such a good idea, why is the minister spending all his time downplaying its impact? Can you imagine any other anti-crime bill where the minister goes out of his way to “reassure” the public that it won’t be effective?
The fact is, once this law is passed, the “digital locks” provision of the bill ensures that Canadians will have lost all rights to their own content and devices! Just transferring a “digitally locked” CD to an iPod, or recording a TV show that has the broadcast flag set will be illegal.
The minister likes to blab on about how the law allows for time shifting, and other “user rights” provisions while conveniently ignoring the fact that if the content is digitally locked, all of those rights are irrelevant.
With some luck perhaps we will have another election before the bill passes and Prentice will be defeated.
