Talking Points to Defeat Bill C-61
With the tabling of Bill C-61 in the Canadian Parliament, I’ve become concerned with the lack of a concise set of “talking points” that summarizes the ramifications of the bill in plain language. This post attempts to capture such a set of talking points for review by the copyfighter community at large. Keep in mind that this document must provide a rational argument against C-61, as a fact-based, non-emotional debate is key to our success in defeating C-61. If you have additional points or comments, please add them in the comments and I’ll integrate them as appropriate.
This document is designed to provide you with a concise set of talking points to use when educating your friends and informing your Member of Parliament of the wide-reaching ramifications of Bill C-61 on consumers’ rights.
What is C-61?
Bill C-61 is a federal bill that has been introduced in the Canadian House of Parliament by Minister of Industry Jim Prentice and Canadian Heritage Minister Josée Verner to reform the Canadian Copyright Act. It is designed to, among other things, “update the rights and protections of copyright owners to better address the Internet, in line with international standards”, “permit certain uses for educational and research purposes of Internet and other digital technologies to facilitate technology-enhanced learning, inter-library loans, the delivery of educational material and access to publicly available material on the Internet”, and “permit certain uses of copyright material for private purposes”.
Why is C-61 bad for Canadians?
The bill faces criticism for several reasons, including the lack of public consultation on the matter by the government, as well as the appearance that the bill is the result of heavy lobbying by the US media industries to replicate the United States’ Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In particular, the bill replicates provisions making it illegal to circumvent digital rights management (DRM) technologies used to protect copyrighted materials.
The bill is bad for Canadians for a number of reasons:
- It reduces your rights: Consumers will continue to be able to use copyrighted materials for research, private study, criticism, review or news reporting, but will no longer have the means to exercise those rights when the copyrighted materials are protected by DRM.
- It reduces the usefulness of your media: Consumers will no longer have the right to take commonly purchased physical media, such as DVDs, or downloaded DRM-protected files, such as digital music, and make copies for their personal use.
- It forces you to buy media you’ve already purchased: Consumers will be unable to unlock media they’ve legally purchased in the past for use on new devices, and hence will be forced to buy the same content again and again.
- It makes your devices less useful: Consumers will be able to do less, not more, with new devices they purchase, as many of these device may, at any time, limit the user’s access to media they have a legal right to view, modify, or redistribute.
- It reduces competition and innovation: Consumers will be unable to influence the market by finding new uses for their existing media and copyrighted materials, limiting the application of ingenuity that can lead to the creation of new applications and markets for Canadians and the world.
- It makes the public domain works inaccessible: Consumers will have the right to re-use works in the public domain, but in cases where those public domain works are protected by DRM consumers will not have the means to exercise those rights and hence lose access to their own heritage.
What won’t I be able to do under C-61?
The following is a short list of the potential ramifications of C-61 on your rights to use your legally purchased media. Under C-61, you will not have the right to:
- Make backups of your DVDs: Let’s say you’re a parent – don’t you want to be able to make a copy of the DVDs you purchase for your kids so you have a way to easily replace the movie when they get their peanut butter-covered hands all over them? Doing so would require you to break the copyright protection software on those DVDs. Under C-61, it will be illegal to do this – instead, you’ll have to buy a whole new DVD.
- Move your media to other devices: Let’s say you’ve purchased a shiny new digital media gadget for your home entertainment center – wouldn’t you like to be able to fill it with content you already own, such as DVDs, CDs, or music you’ve legally purchased from online services? If that media is protected by DRM, C-61 makes it illegal for you to copy this data – you will only be able to use your media on devices that support the media’s DRM format. If your new device doesn’t support some (or all) of your existing content’s DRM technology, you’ll have to purchase it again.
- Use your media in perpetuity: Let’s say you purchased a movie or a song from an online service – don’t you expect to be able to keep using that movie or song forever, even if the online service goes out of business? If your media is protected by DRM that contacts a server to authorize your access and the service goes out of business, you will no longer be able to access media you legally purchased. Under C-61, it will be illegal for you to break the DRM to access the media you legally purchased.
- Exercise your rights to fair dealing: Let’s say you’re a student doing a documentary and want to use some video in your documentary which falls under Canada’s fair dealing doctrine allowing use of copyrighted materials for research, private study, criticism, review or news reporting. Under C-61, you will not be able to exercise your rights to include the video in your film if the video is protected by DRM. In essence, you have the right use the video, but no way to do so without breaking the law.
- Re-mix DRM-ed public domain materials: Let’s say you’re working on some cool photo montage that takes photos from the public domain and re-uses them in some new and interesting way. If the photos are stored in a DRMed format, you can’t access them without breaking the law under C-61. Again, you have the rights to use the photos, and in fact they’re a part of the public domain and belong to humankind as a whole – you just can’t exercise your rights.
- Unlock your phone: Let’s say you’ve been lusting after a new phone, but it’s only available for another carrier. If that carrier has “locked” the phone to restrict it to their network, you will not have the right to unlock the phone to work with your current carrier. While this is not specifically forbidden under C-61, a carrier could argue that unlocking a phone circumvents of a copyright control, which would be illegal under C-61.
- Use all of your phone’s features: Let’s say you realize your phone has some really cool features that the carrier decided to disable. If you employ software tools to re-enable these features, it could be argued that you are circumventing a copyright control, which would be illegal under C-61. You paid for the device and all its features, you just aren’t allowed to use them.
- Remove DRM software: Let’s say you’ve purchased a CD that has DRM on it and you decide to play it on your computer – isn’t it fair to assume that you have the right to uninstall any software the CD installs on your system? Under C-61, disabling or uninstalling this software may be illegal. Your computer is no longer yours to control.
This sounds alarmist – aren’t you over-reacting?
The outcome of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the United States over the past ten years, coupled with the actions of media corporations, has illustrated the ramifications of overly restrictive copyright law on the rights of consumers. Here are some examples of the egregious behavior that has resulted from the DMCA and the industry’s insistence on the use of DRM technology:
- Consumers unable to access media they purchased legally: A number of online music services have closed up shop, leaving consumers without the right or the means to access they legally purchased. Examples include the closure of the MSN Music store, the closure of the Sony Connect Music service, and the closure of Google’s Video Store. In all cases, the user’s were unable to access their media as-is; in the case of Sony, users had to undertake a number of cumbersome manual steps to maintain access to their music, and in the case of Google, users were refunded their money only after a public outcry.
- Consumers unable to use their devices as intended: Some popular digital video recorders include a “broadcast flag” technology desire to allow the manufacturer to limit how long a user may access programs they record, or prevent them from even recording some programs at all. Most recently, NBC accidentally enabled this technology, preventing users of Microsoft’s Home Media Center from recording an episode of American Gladiators.
- Consumers’ privacy and security risked by faulty DRM solutions: In an effort to prevent users from copying CDs onto their computers, some manufacturers have embedded software that is automatically installed on the user’s computer when they insert the CD. This software not only uses up the user’s computing resources, but also reports on the user’s activities to the manufacturer. The most noteworthy example of this is Sony’s use of a DRM system that illicitly installs software on the user’s machine, is very difficult to remove, and sends information to a third-party about the user’s activities.
What can I do to stop C-61?
- Contact your Member of Parliament: Use this document to guide you in outlining your concerns to your local MP. Not sure who your local MP is? Find your MP here.
- Join the Facebook group: Facebook has already been used successfully to thwart anti-consumer bills like this in Canada. Join the Fair Copyright for Canada group.
- Educate yourself, educate your friends: The only way to defeat this is if a large number of Canadians take action to alert ordinary consumers of the threat to their rights. Michael Geist has written a number of good articles on the topic.
This is the most concise, well-written explanation of the ill-effects of the DMCA that I have ever read. The examples of ways you will not be able to use it are both common usages and clearly threatened by bill C-61. Adding the confirmation of these concerns with some prominent news clips really sends the point home.
It’s good to see somebody articulate this in such a clear manner. Unlike the lobbyists, the public doesn’t have a spinster to make their point for them. Thankfully, we have somebody who can give the plain, honest truth in a way that even an MP could understand.
Thanks James! Michael Geist actually has started an interesting series that provides “a day in the life” scenarios that detail how everyday uses of media would be eliminated by C-61. You might want to check that out as well.
Good stuff, great job.
I haven’t seen anyone mention what happens to the blank media tax we already pay.
Brendon, this is fantastic write-up. I’ll be pointing everyone to this in hopes that they will become educated about this Bill. As an American who now lives in Canada, I know first hand how awful a law such as this is.
Another thing is that people will not be able to watch DVDs from outside region 1, since multiregion DVD players will be outlawed as “illegal circumventing devicesâ€.
This effectively means that people coming from India will not be able to watch Indian films, people coming from China will not be able to watch Chinese films.
The same thing will happen for films from Britain or France or elsewhere in Europe.
Now, how do you explain to your constituents that they are no longer allowed to watch films they legally purchased from someone else than Hollywood???
I agree with Mr. Cooper; this is a great article.
One thing I would like to know, however, and it has not been addressed in any articles that I have read anywhere… but what happened to the levy that is(was) on all blank media, that was supposedly used to compensate content providers/creators for downloading and copying? It was one of the reasons that downloading music that you had not paid for was actually considered legal in Canada. Because it was paid for. By every person who purchased a blank CD, DVD, VHS, cassette, etc.. Is that levy still there? If so, what will happen to it once(if) Bill C-61 passes into law?
Just something else to think about.
Regarding the blank media levy that a couple comments have asked about: as I noted here, the Canadian Copyright Board has, as of 2007, distributed over $100M collected using the blank media tax. What’s interesting is that there is little description I’ve been able to find on how the funds are distributed.
The Canadian Copyright Board has already filed its preliminary motions for private copying levies in 2008-2009, which only strikes out the levies for digital audio recorders in response to the recent Federal Court of Appeals ruling that the board did not have the authority to apply the levies to iPods and similar devices. Its request for interim tariffs maintains the status quo of levies in place from 2005-2007 unchanged otherwise.
@Jean: I’m not sure that would necessarily be true. Certainly, there is a possibility that it could be interpreted that way; however, I’ve not seen any qualified opinion on the matter indicating that to be the case.
What’s unclear is how such an interpretation would be enforced. After all, if you import a non-region 1 DVD player which you purchased legally, who’s responsibility is it to stop you? Is it Customs’ responsibility?
The core question: Is employing a legally purchased product in the way it was designed to work really “circumvention”? If so, how is this distinguished from using my iPod to play a DRM-protected file that I legally purchased from iTunes? Isn’t that “circumventing” the DRM as well?
I honestly don’t know the answer.
Alec Sauders makes an interesting point about C-61 – it appears it might require him to buy a copy of a CD for each iPod his family owns.
At first, I wasn’t so so sure about his argument, so I checked it out. Section 29.22 (1) (d) states:
“29.22 (1) It is not an infringement of copyright for an individual to reproduce onto a medium or device a musical work embodied in a sound recording, a performer’s performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or a sound recording in which a musical work or a performer’s performance of a musical work is embodied, or any substantial part of such a work or other subject-matter, if the following conditions are met:
(d) the individual reproduces the sound recording no more than once for each device that the individual owns, whether the reproduction is made directly onto the device or is made onto a medium that is to be used with the device;”
The key here is “once for each device that the individual owns”. So, it really depends on who “owns” the iPods in your family. If your kids and spouse own their iPods, it’s a problem – you’ll have to buy a copy of the CD for each member of your family (not one for each device, however, if family members own multiple devices). If you own them, however, it would appear that it’s not a problem.
Very very well put Brendon, it helps define the Bill in a way I certainly could not.
I have directed anyone visiting my blog on the matter to come to yours, if that’s all right with you.
Thanks for this, I’ve linked it to everyone I’ve been nagging about this and asked for a summary of the situation. The more I read the more I’m just baffled that it’s gotten so far.
Ok I’m in the US… Not sure how things work up there. But here we can record things off TV and save and watch them indefinately… well at least until brodcasters manage to make the broadcast flag law.
This law would allow you to make a recording only if not protected for time shifting purposes and then you would only be allowed to watch it once and destroy the recording as soon as you watched it.
So if you are using TIVO… TIVO would probably be required to erase the show you had saved as you watched it.
It is my understanding that the broadcast flag was actually passed into law in the US, but was subsequently struck down by the US Court of Appeals (see the Wikipedia broadcast flag entry). There was some ruffling of feathers recently when NBC accidentally enabled the broadcast flag and preventing Windows Media Centers from recording ‘American Gladiators’ (an act of mercy, in my opinion, but I digress).
However, time-shifting of programs has been in a bit of grey area in Canada. Michael Geist has a post on time-shifting with some relatively informed comments on the topic.
Very very well put Brendon, it helps define the Bill in a way I certainly could not. Thank you for giving this useful information.
Excellent article, thanks for taking the time to write this =)
I have been searching everywhere for an answer to a simple question. When does the Corporate Government vote on this law?
I have no doubt that the Corporate Party of Canada will pass this law into being.
I need to know when they will do it so I can be prepared.
When please? Does anyone know?
That’s all anybody needs to know is when to run to the survival shelter and bolt the door.
I want to be prepared for Canadian Internet Doomsday.
Thank You.
@Max: The bill is only in First Reading, so there is plenty of time for the bill to be changed, or even withdrawn, prior to any actual vote in the House of Parliament. Don’t fret, just be active and let your opinion be heard by your MP.
Yeah yeah , the corporate government has always been interested in my opinion. right.
I noticed that when they put the GST and NAFTA through even though by national poll 99 percent of the people hated it.
I noticed that when they stole millions from the Sponsorship and the main culprits never got punished or criminally investigated.
I noticed that when they canceled the Somalia Inquiry.
I noticed that when they closed the border for cheap pharmaceuticals to make the corporations richer.
I noticed that when big business and the rich took patents out on life and nature itself and took over a fascist control of the economy and put all the small businesses out of business.
I noticed that when twelve families took over absolute control of the media.
I noticed that when I saw the police get away with murder and federal judges silence an repress the population.
I noticed that when I saw every politician elected in rigged circus election being bought and paid for by the corporate rich.
I notice every day how much the fascist corporate government cares about the opinions of Canadians NOT and how the masses love their masters and hate reformers.
I still need to know when they will vote on it.
I’m not sending my name and opinion anywhere, the Human Rights Commission or some arm of the Government will mark me a dissenter and a few years from now when they start up the gulags the jackboots will come calling.
I’ll let someone else be the first inmates. I can’t help a nation of insane self-destructive people with their minds controlled by MSM propaganda. The public made this fascist country , they can go first to the ovens.
I heard the first vote is possibly September. I got til then to stock up on Beethoven and Mozart. Then I’ll go to ground and never surface again. After that I’ll consider that Canada been nuked with no survivors and the entertainment-news-radio-TV-Hollywood-whatever industry and other Canadians no longer exist.
Hmm, while I agree that democracy sometimes takes on the appearance of two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner, I can’t condone inaction. As Edmund Burke once put it: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
To paraphrase Edmund Burke “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do is to participate in the system of evil that surronds them”
…such as the rigged elections that elimate genuine politcal competition and the rigged economy which is totalitarian and lisening to the MSM and allowing propanda poinson to infect one’s brain.
To paraphrawe Anne Frank “Hide in the attic til it’s all over”. Sadly even that is no guarantee but she did stay alive a little longer.
Question: Why is the North American system of economic and political fascism with it’s prpaganda media firmly in plae?
Answer: Becaue the masses want it. It’s easier than resisteing. Sure they have been brainwashed and kept ignorant by the media, but perhaps the human culture is inherently a slave culture like an ant colony.
..
Whatever, the only reward I have ever gottnen from the masses or even individuals for fighting for freedom is to be pillioried for my effort.
In an insane self-destructive society, go to ground! hide!don’t come come out til the people are ready and willing to fight else they will turn on you and send you to the gulag.
Let the fools burn in the ovens first.
Your quote says “good men”…plural.
I see no plural. when there is a plural, it’s good advice.
Where do I start… from the beginning…when they tried to pass this same bill in the 1990’s under Chrétien government and Sheila Copps was the Heritage Minster, this bill abolished, by large media corporation, like Sony, Maxell, etc. basically, they added levy taxes on media and at the same time try to pass this bill, which is illegal. The media corporation went to court, all the away the top and Bill had to be changed which is in current state. The court stated you cannot charge levy on media and have copyright protection at the same time, the government want the cake and eat it too.
So now fast forward to current time, this Bill has come up again and again it’s illegal. The only way they can pass this Bill if the government gets rid of the levy on the media, if the do they that, they will loss millions of revenue. So before they start to talk about the Bill again they need to talk about the levy taxes.
Last thing the best way to stop this Bill is get the big media corporation, like, Sony, Maxell, Imation, etc to go after the government, like in the 1990’s they are the ones who are really going to loose big if this Bill passes.
this is craazyy! they cant doo this, OMG we totally have to do something about this..
I cant even express how annoyed i am.
……
Yes, I do not agree with this bill, but a lot of the things you are saying, like you can’t burn DVDs or unlock your phone, who is EVER going to find out that you burned a DVD, it’s not like it’s remotely possible to track that or find out. At all. Ever.
@GRIDS: Sure, some sections of the bill are completely unenforceable. They are meant more as scare tactics to deter copying, rather than legitimate means to prosecute pirates.
This is exactly why such sections should be removed. Failing to do so, the result will be a chilling effect on innovation – pirates will keep going about their business, but innovative services will never get off the ground for fear of prosecution.
Just look at how long it’s taken to get video on the iPod, versus music on the iPod. The DMCA prevented the creation of tools that would allow users to rip content they had already purchased from DVDs (which are protected by encryption), and hence an entire spectrum of possible services stagnated. Well, stagnated for the general public – those users who were technically savvy enough to break the DVD encryption were unaffected, although in doing so they were now technically “pirates” even if their use of their own DVDs should have been considered Fair Use.
The part about the companies installing software of our computers that reports our activity scares me to death. How in the world is that legal? Isn’t that an invasion of privacy or something?
@Jessica: It certainly is an invasion of privacy, and it may fall under the realm of cybercrime/computer intrusion laws. I believe there were class action lawsuits that resulted in the case of Sony.
In many cases these companies may be able to argue the user was informed about the software’s behavior in the End User License Agreement. These are onerously long legal documents that most users simply click through without reading – but that click-through signals acceptance of the terms of the license, which may give the companies an out.
However, understand that companies spying on users is nothing new. Your TiVo reports on your TV consumption behavior. Your American Express purchases are aggregated and sold off to marketing firms to provide demographic data. Your photo is taken numerous times by public and private surveillance cameras. This is nothing new. That’s not to say you should be complacent, merely aware of the implications as computing power grows and data-mining software grows more sophisticated.
Well summerized. It’s the best article on this issue I’ve read in a long time.
And I’m about to say something totally communist…
Looking at the success of open sourced, public domained works such as Wikipedia, Linux, and other such improvements for human kinds, it seems totally illogical for government to denounce such innovations.
To copyrights, they should in theory help innovation, but they do not perform that function when they are used by giant corporations as tools to sweep away the “undergrowth” innovations.
Copyrights should be abandoned completely in my opinions, and innovations backed by taxes from our government. People always find a way to go around paying, seeing all the pirating that the government KNOW they can never get rid of, they should start thinking outside of the box.
As to this Bill C-61, I do think we, all, every single one of us not so conservative to support this, should call our local MPs immediately.
It is much easier to prevent than to cure. This is true to human bodies and human bodies alike.
Uh, I’m going to have to disagree on this one. The government shouldn’t be involved in subsidizing the creation of these works, except to correct market distortions. That’s just as wrong an approach as adopting protectionist laws to shield the media industry from the winds of change.
Get out of the way, let the markets sort it out.
I understand how this bill will limit our uses of media in many ways, my question is how much time and money is the government willing to spend on watching how we use our media equipment???
For example, coping and selling pirated DVDs is an illegal activity that could land a person in jail for five years and hit them with $500,000.00 fine, yet we still have many stores downtown that sell them. We only hear about a couple of these stores being raided every year.
I say let them pass the bill, in the end, there is a human limitation to implementing it.
Brendon, is all this not a moot point now that a Canadian election is around the corner. Is this Bill not dead? I don’t think politicians are going to listen to anyone right now. Maybe after the election, everyone should contact their new MP’s just to tell them we haven’t gone away. Your comments please.
Yes and no.
Yes, because if the election is called (which it hadn’t been yet), the bill will die. No, because the bill will get re-introduced in some form, regardless of who gets into power. We’ve been on this merry-go-round before.
Therefore, with an election looming, it’s more important than ever to keep the pressure and attention on this issue. Canadians have been outraged at the potential implications of this bill, and therefore it is a potential election issue (albeit a minor one). We can at least ensure the most heinous parts of this bill get watered down or removed entirely.
I object to these big media companies trying to force us to buy multiple copies of anything. What ever happened to the idea that when you paid for something it was Yours ? Whats next ? Buy a house and it reverts to the builder if you die or want to sell it ?