I cannot explain it any better myself. Canadians - the government is planning to introduce law that could seriously harm your freedoms regarding your use of entertainment media, devices and content.If you have the wherewithal, do something. Time is running out.
I did. I wrote a letter.
[update] Some folks asked me privately if I would consider publishing the letter I wrote, so I have put it as the first comment.
1 comment:
I regret that I cannot attend your open house tomorrow, but I wanted to write you because I feel very strongly about this new Copyright Bill and felt that you need to know there are many of us who are not in agreement.
I do not support any law that removes the right of fair use (or fair dealing as it is known in Canada) of copyrighted works. This is an essential right. If it is removed, the populace will revolt.
I do not support any law that rewards an industry that has abandoned technology because it doesn't understand it (not my words), instead of embracing it. An industry that would actually prefer that if I want to play a work of music on my home stereo, my car, my computer and my mp3 player, then I need to buy 4 copies of said work. An industry that has created a market where I cannot even buy a legal mp3 of my favourite signed artists, with no DRM restrictions. An industry that has taken to suing its customers. An industry that lobbied the American government to threaten cutting funding from universities if they did not play an active part in prosecuting students who allegedly share music. An industry that in an answer to a student who had been sued for sharing music and was wondering how to pay the settlement, was told, "Quit school and go back to work". An industry that prevented Blockbuster from setting up custom CD burning machines in their stores that would allow customers to select a bunch of their favourite songs and made into a custom CD for a fee.
I do not support any law that rewards the same industry that insists that illegal downloading hurts music sales, when an independent survey concluded that downloaders are typically the folks who buy the most music. An industry that is so desperate to try to stop music copying that it resorts to copy protection measures that make CDs un-playable on many CD players.
Copy-protection is not stopping the "pirates" from copying films and distributing them (DVD, HD-DVD, and BluRay have all been cracked), but the DRM is stopping ordinary Canadians from watching a film on their computer because they choose Linux or OS X instead of Windows.
Further, DRM is a deeply flawed concept. It is ineffectual - companies spend millions developing it, only to have it broken within a week. The cost is passed on to the consumers. DRM can be actively dangerous - the Sony rootkit fiasco for example. It harms the consumer - there are already cases of people who have purchased DRM-laden content, only to have the provider remove support, and leave the consumer with a large number of files that are no longer playable.
Many Canadian artists, such as The Barenaked Ladies and Canadian recording companies, such as Nettwerk, are against measures such as these, yet the government continues to push for these changes. The CRIA has lost the support of numerous mainstream groups in recent years explicitly due to it's support of legislation such as this. Even the artists themselves don't seem to support it.
If the legislation and technology continues to stop honest consumers from doing reasonable things with the media they have legally purchased, they're going to start searching out the cracked copies on the Internet because it will give them the freedom to do the format-shifting and time-shifting they want, and probably at a lower cost.
Remember, the entertainment industry screamed bloody murder when cassette tapes and video tapes were invented. The government ignored their ridiculous cries then and in turn, the industry adapted and made millions from those new technologies. Do us all a favour and don't fall for the same tricks again.
I think that it's consumer that need to be protected, not the entertainment industry.
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