Bill C-61: First Reactions
By Laure J Murray
http://www.faircopyright.ca/?p=125
Now that my blog is back up and running after being hacked last night (why last night after all those somnolent months I wonder…?) and the day’s interviews are over, here are a few first responses to this bill.
1. It’s a lie to consumers. It seems to permit consumers to do reasonable things they already do — format shifting, time shifting, for example — but, no, it’s only OK if the vendor says so. Basically the bill encourages big copyright owners to use DRM and contractual limitations even more aggressively. Once they do that, the consumer benefits promised here are worse than gone. The reductions of statutory damages only apply when there’s no hacking of digital locks — if you want to unlock your cellphone or put a DVD on your hard-drive or stymie a privacy-invading technology, there’s no help for you. If you’re blind or deaf, you get a dispensation to break digital locks — but it’s illegal for anybody to offer help, so good luck to you in the virtual dark alleyways looking for a guy with software inside his virtual trenchcoat. C-61 is truly laissez-faire in the sense that it lets vendors of copyright material set the terms of the law, and override whatever idea of balance the Copyright Act, common practice, and court decisions might otherwise offer.