New Copyright Law Proposed, Canadians Still Take It On The Chin

Thursday, June 12th Canada's government introduces new copyright law that despite claims that it's more balanced than previous proposed it's still a clone of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The only thing that is different fines for downloading from peer to peer networks is capped at 500 dollars. Bans on circumventing copy protection remain in place.

Recording content for the purpose of time shifting will remain legal,e but compiling personal libraries of recorded content will become illegal. This is absolutely absurd since many TV shows that people have archives TV shows that cannot be purchased on DVD.

Even among those who would ordinarily support the rights of creators there isn't wide support for the bill. Safwan Javed drummer of the Canadian rock band Wide Mouth Mason speaking on behalf of the Canadian Music Creators Coalition calls the proposed law an "American-style approach to copyright." He states that suing music fans is not going to prevent piracy.

The introduction of the bill comes just as the House of Commons is due to go into a summer break. If it fails to pass before the summer break it will die on the order paper just like the last few copyright bills even the bill the Liberals tried to pass before Paul Martin called the 2004 election.