Copyright: What Prentice giveth, the fine print taketh away
Russel McOrmond has a revealing post about the new Copyright Bill, C-61. Suffice to say it is simply awful. Michael Geist also has some preliminary commentary.
Hopefully the government will fall long before this ever gets passed, because if it does there will be quite a mess…
29.21 (1) It is not an infringement of copyright for an individual to reproduce a work or other subject-matter that is a photograph or is contained in a book, newspaper, periodical or videocassette, or any substantial part of such a work or other subject-matter, onto another medium or device, if the following conditions are met:
(c) the individual, in order to make the reproduction, did not circumvent a technolog- ical measure or cause one to be circumvented, within the meanings of the definitions “circumvent” and “technological measure” in section 41;
There are similar great provisions, with conditions that essentially render the ‘fair dealing’ so inacted completely useless in the digital world. EVERYTHING is protected by digital locks, and Prentice has just made it illegal to pick them (even though it is easy to do, and pirates will have no trouble doing so).
*sigh*
Possibly related posts:
DOOM!
Well, guess I’ll be harassing my local MPs, and anyone else I can get my hands on. This is not surprising, but it IS terribly depressing.
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