Canadian Content Lobbyists Pushing For ISP Liability

from the please,-someone-else-fix-all-our-problems dept

As the debate up in Canada continues over its plans to introduce new, more stringent, copyright legislation, a somewhat disturbing trend is appearing. While the earlier debate focused mainly on the similarities between Canada's draft legislation and the US's DMCA, it appears that some lobbyists are using the delay to push for something even more extreme: ISP liability. They're using recent wins in Europe over ISP liability, as well as AT&T's brain-dead proposals to filter unauthorized materials as an opening to push for much stronger copyright laws that include ISP liability, effectively using legislation to take their own business model problems and technical ignorance and dump those problems on everyone else. The potential to force the rest of the world to change in order to compensate for AT&T's own short-sightedness is breathtaking, and such influence would be deserving of envy, if it weren't so effectively but detrimentally applied. Right now, about the only good news coming out of this debate in Canada is that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart, has pointed out that many of these proposals risk undermining individual privacy rights. Unfortunately, privacy supporters don't tend to donate nearly as much money to politicians as stronger copyright supporters.
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Filed Under: canada, copyright, dmca, isp liability


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  1. identicon
    I Violate Copyrights, 22 Jan 2008 @ 9:18am

    Sue Me

    Hi, I'm Xerox. You can use my product to make illegal copies of books, research papers, photos, drawings. Please sue me because my equipment does not filter copyrighted content.

    Hi, I'm American Paper. You can use my product to make illegal copies of books, research papers, photos, drawings. Please sue me because my equipment does not filter copyrighted content.

    Hi, I'm Kodak. You can use my product to make illegal copies of books, research papers, photos, drawings. Please sue me because my equipment does not filter copyrighted content.

    Hi, I'm Bic. You can use my product to make illegal copies of books, research papers, photos, drawings. Please sue me because my equipment does not filter copyrighted content.

    Hi, I'm Memorex. You can use my product to make illegal copies of books, research papers, photos, drawings. Please sue me because my equipment does not filter copyrighted content.

    Stupid, stupid, stupid politicians.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Overcast, 22 Jan 2008 @ 9:42am

    And don't forget...

    The power company - without their power, you couldn't copy anything.

    The Government - without their 'licenses' business wouldn't be allowed to set up devices, like photocopiers at Kinkos to allow copying.

    Steel Producers - without steel/aluminum, etc - they wouldn't have metal to make the copiers and such, or computers.

    Silicon Manufacturing Companies - without them, there would be no IC chips that are used in copiers and computers to facilitate this horrible atrocity.

    Glass companies - without Glass, no lenses could be used to copy documents, nor would we have glass for the monitors to see copy written material.

    Coal Mining Companies - again, without coal, there wouldn't be as much power to copy - copy written material. Should also include oil, geothermal, solar, hydroelectric, and Nuclear energy companies - just in case.

    Shipping Industry - the whole damn industry. Without Shipping, there would be no way for these evil companies to send me devices to copy protected content.

    Wiring Manufacturers - without wiring, it wouldn't be possible to make computers or copiers to copy protected content.

    Plastic Companies - since plastic is used to make most copiers and computers, they contribute greatly to this horrible atrocity.

    Toner Manufacturers - they are critical in this horrid theft of property. They must be executed.

    ...

    Shall we go on?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Nick (profile), 22 Jan 2008 @ 9:44am

    Hi, I'm AT&T. You can use my phone network to talk about and plan crimes such as kidnapping, extortion, robbery, beatings, drug selling, forgery, larceny, or arson. Please sue me because I did not filter out conversations that were related to the planning of crimes.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2008 @ 10:07am

    Hi, I'm a gun. I can be used to kill people.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous, 22 Jan 2008 @ 10:13am

    i do not agree with the ISP levy, but if you didn't know, Canada already has a levy on harddrives, CDs, etc (for copyright reasons)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anon, 22 Jan 2008 @ 10:18am

    Hi, I am the **AA, allow me to lobby for a business model that allows me to sue you for looking at something you didn't pay for.

    Hi, I am the Government, sure **AA, let's even give you some taxpayer money to keep losing your cases!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    Killer_Tofu (profile), 22 Jan 2008 @ 10:40am

    This Thread

    This thread needs to be sent to all of the people looking over the proposal. It might give them a small insight into the stupidity of the argument. I think the first few comments help add to bringing it all into scope quite good as well.
    But then again, with some of the stuff they've passed I think the argument we are making here would be over their heads. Either that or they would ignore it because they won't be paid extra money on the side by us.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    R. H., 22 Jan 2008 @ 6:08pm

    Re:

    Um...people HAVE sued gun manufacturers for wrongful death before and IIRC some of them have actually won.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    nonuser, 22 Jan 2008 @ 8:11pm

    the Internet was designed to be stupid

    All the application-level intelligence is meant to be applied at the connection endpoints, not at the ISP.

    They need to get people like David Isen ("Rise of the Stupid Network") to testify.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    ECA (profile), 23 Jan 2008 @ 2:02am

    Responsiblity

    OK,
    IF an ISP is liable for WHAT I DO... I WANT TV to be responsible for commercials.
    I want Lawyers, to be responsible to getting a CROOK OFF...
    I want the USPS, responsible for NOT giving me CRAP in my Mail.

    I WANT ISP's to be responsible in TRACKING SPAM, insted of just Dumping it..
    I want a product to be GOOD quality and NOT DESIGNED to DIE, when it ISNT supposed to.
    I want CARS designed to LAST...Forget ALL THIS PLASTIC, that we pay, as MUCH as titanium prices FOR. $200+ for a Light fixture made of PLASTIC.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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