Canadian Industry Minister Admits He Breaks Copyright Law Frequently

from the but-will-the-new-bill-fix-it? dept

Michael Geist points us to an article about how Canadian Industry Minister Tony Clement has admitted that, under current Canadian law, he breaks the law all the time -- mainly by transferring songs from CDs to his iPod, which is apparently not currently allowed under Canadian copyright law (something I did not know...). Clearly, Clement is bringing this up to show that Canadian copyright law has some serious problems, though it's amusing to note that, if this is accurate, it's yet another in the long list of ways that Canadian copyright law (despite claims to the contrary by US politicians and the entertainment industry) is actually significantly more favorable to copyright holders than US law.

That said, Clement is the guy who supposedly was fighting for more reasonable copyright law in Canada, but the rumor is that he lost that fight to Heritage Minister James Moore, who pitched a US-style law. We're still waiting for the official release of this new copyright proposal, but if it's true that Clement lost the fight for a more reasonable law, the reason he's bringing this up now is that the upcoming bill to change Canadian copyright law will add lots of things that the entertainment industry wants, but won't balance it out with more rights for consumers -- such as the basic right to place shift your legally purchased music.

Of course, when you have your own government officials admitting that they break copyright law regularly (and give a good reason for it), it should be obvious that it's time to fix the law. Unfortunately, if the rumors are true, the "fix" is only going to make things much worse.

Filed Under: canada, copyright, time shifting, tony clement