The Canadian Government... Looking to Fuck over the rights of Canadians Apparently

Those of you in Canada might know that today the ruling party of our government has tabled some legislation today which attempts to reform Canadian copyrights... unfortunately this reform is for the benefit of large multi-national media comglomerates who are looking to fuck us all over for an extra buck.

What is interesting, is that this bill was tabled by two new ministers who are happy to sell out to these companies, Prentice and Verner and not Bev Oda (who previously tried to sell us all down the river with her attempts at copyright reform in Bill C-60, which was thankfully withdrawn after some large protests).

Ministers Prentice and Verner made a first salvo attempt to deflect damage by sending out a mass email to those who had concerns with Bill C-60 earlier this year by explaining that this was a wonderful change for all Canadian. What they did not explain was also how it screws everyone over.

For a better explaination of what's going on one simply needs to read Michael Giest's blog. For the record, Mr Giest is a copyright lawyer and law professor at the University of Ottawa, so you can trust that he knows what he is talking about.

Here are some interesting points that he brings up:

"The effect of the digital lock provisions is to render these rights virtually meaningless in the digital environment because anything that is locked down (ie. copy-controlled CD, no-copy mandate on a digital television broadcast) cannot be copied. As for every day activities like transferring a DVD to your iPod - those are infringing too. Indeed, the law makes it an infringement to circumvent the locks for these purposes."

"The digital lock provisions are worse than the DMCA. Yes - worse. The law creates a blanket prohibition on circumvention with very limited exceptions and creates a ban against distributing the tools that can be used to circumvent."

So it looks like its time to call up your local MP and point out to them that you do not support this bill and that they as your representative should not either.