Canadian Businesses Speak Out Against Canadian DMCA

from the so-who-wants-it? dept

Wed, Feb 13th 2008 5:58am — Mike Masnick

The entertainment industry has been pushing on Canada to introduce a version of the DMCA up north for years. Late last year, it looked like the effort was going to pay off in extremely one-sided legislation that was basically a wish list from Hollywood for changes in copyright law that clearly favored that industry over consumers' rights. While the Canadian politicians backing the proposal tried to push it through without too much scrutiny, Michael Geist's efforts to call attention to the effort helped get it postponed.

However, since then, the supporters of the bill keep looking to reintroduce it at a time when most folks are looking elsewhere. When pressed on the bill, they try to defend it, though the defenses are usually easily debunked. One of the main talking points in that link is that businesses are demanding these changes. However, Geist is now pointing out that a huge number of big businesses have now formed the Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright in order to publicly speak out against the Canadian DMCA. The group includes a bunch of Canadian telcos, broadcasters, cable companies, retailers and internet firms -- all basically saying that the Canadian DMCA isn't what they want. So, what businesses are actually demanding these changes? Oh yeah, just a few big entertainment companies based in the US.

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Filed Under: canada, dmca

8 Comments

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James, 13 Feb 2008 @ 7:39am

Sure...
...business are demanding this, just like US ISPs are demanding that they be required to filter traffic on their networks to the advantage of the entertainment industry.

Ohhh wait... thats just AT&T/Comcast... my bad.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2008 @ 7:59am

more of the same BS - Can't wait for the entertainment industry to get a big black eye!
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Patrick, 13 Feb 2008 @ 8:01am

I agree with another poster here on another article that mentioned a boycott of the entertainment industry during the month of JULY. Can anyone organize this? Time for us to sue them in our court. The Earth!
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Doug, 13 Feb 2008 @ 8:59am

Boycott for one month? Why not permanently?
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Bob3000, 13 Feb 2008 @ 9:13am

God I love it here!

[proud canadian]
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Robin Leslie, 13 Feb 2008 @ 9:16am

Whoooh
Yes as far as I understand the laws proposed are even more strict than the ones in the states. This will allow large companies to bankrupt random people for music downloads through spyware usage tracking etc... as per the situation in USA. Also I hear they will put laws as stingy as not allowing "parody" which is imitating something such as SNL does or Mad Magazine for lack of a better example. It does zero good for the majority of Canada.
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4-80-sicks, 13 Feb 2008 @ 9:51am

Re: Whoooh
for lack of a better example.
There is no better example than those you gave.
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Chronno S. Trigger, 13 Feb 2008 @ 11:02am

Re:
From this point forward let it be known across the world that July is international boycott the RIAA/MPAA month. Do not purchase any CDs or DVDs from any RIAA/MPAA associated anything from July 1st threw July 31st. Tell everyone, send E-Mails to random people, shout it down the street. If this douse not get their attention then we will do it for longer.

I'll try and get a website up and running but for now just try and spread it to everyone you know and a few you don't.

From this point forward I will end all my posts with:

-July, Boycott the MPAA/RIAA.
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