I got a letter on friday (Word document by itself in an email, no text at all :( ) answering my letter to Duceppe concerning the crapiness of C-61, I’m wondering about this part :
Cependant, la loi actuelle sur les droits d’auteur est obsolète et n’est pas conforme aux traités signés par le Canada en 1997. Il nous apparaît essentiel de procéder à une révision en profondeur de l’actuelle loi et c’est pourquoi nous entendons voter en faveur du principe du projet de loi de telle sorte qu’il puisse être amendé en profondeur lors des travaux du comité qui suivront. À ce moment, nous aurons toutes les chances de faire valoir nos préoccupations émises plus haut avant une éventuelle réforme de la loi existante.
My translation :
However, the current law on copyright is obsolete and does not conform to the treaties signed by Canada in 1997. It seems essential to us to proceed with an in depth review of the current law which is why we intend to give our approval to the principle of the bill so that it can then be amended in depth during the comitee sessions that will follow. At that moment we will have all opportunities to make our preocupations (cited above) be known before the eventual reform of the current law.
Seems to me the bill is so flawed that it should be shot down completely, or at the very leased heavily modified before going through but does this make sense? Letting it pass so it can be used as an opportunity to change the current law for the better? I’m thinking that stopping it as early as possible is the way to go but maybe I’m missing something about the process…
[Update 10 minutes later] Humm, after re-reading the whole thing I also don’t like the only reason they cite for disliking the bill:
Ainsi, bien que les grands gagnants du téléchargement illégal soient les fournisseurs de service Internet qui perçoivent de l’argent de ceux et celles qui téléchargent, rien dans le projet de loi ne restreint leur pratique. Seuls les consommateurs sont perçus comme des contrevenants et les créateurs, pour faire respecter leurs droits, doivent faire eux-mêmes les démarches.
My translation:
And so, even though the main winners of illegal download are the internet providers who charge money to those who download, nothing in the bill restrains that practice. Only consumers are perceived as breaking the law and creators, to have their rights respected, have to do the work themselves.
Making ISPs responsible for illegal downloading is a step toward trafic shaping (blocking torrents) and the emphasis shouldn’t be in people suing people but on a balanced solution. Doesn’t look like that’s what the Bloc is advocating.
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this is why i’ll never be a politician. think one thing, do the opposite, and try to do games and plays in the background.
A rather lame response, but I’m glad you took the time to write.
Though I wish that least one of the parties were to be more critical of the bill, the notion that there could be public discussion about the bill is somewhat reassuring. Getting the whole issue of copyright buried is probably the last thing we want.
And, to be honest, I go back and forth as to what the best approach might be to significant changes in Canadian copyright. Maybe the old legislation could be maintained but there could be pro-citizen additions to this legislation. Or the copyright legislation should be rebuilt from the ground up. Or, perhaps, we can tweak Prentice’s C-61 until the (in)famous “consumer to corporate consumer” balance is satisfying for most people. Seriously, I’m not completely sure what the best procedure might be.
Got here from a link from Michael Geist’s site.
Interesting read, it seems the Bloc is even more spectacularly out of touch than anyone.
“And so, even though the main winners of illegal download are the internet providers who charge money to those who download, nothing in the bill restrains that practice. Only consumers are perceived as breaking the law and creators, to have their rights respected, have to do the work themselves.”
I have no idea how ISP’s benefit from illegal downloading. There just isn’t a logical connection, even a small one, leet alone enough to substantiate them being the “main beneficiary”. The main beneficiary of illegal downloading is the person doing the downloading.
It seems the Bloc’s in the pocket of lobbyist wanting regulation to force ISP’s to police their customers’ internet usage.
So far, only the NDP seem to have called this bill what it is, the liberals are hedging, and the Bloc are off in la la land.
I think they mean that the ISPs get money from people who pay them for internet connectivity, and then those people use the internet that they pay the ISPs for to download stuff.
Which makes perfect sense; obviously all anyone ever does online is download music and movies, why else would anyone ever pay for an internet connection?
Let’s just criminalize the use of the internet. Problem solved!
An idealistic organization of the Bloc’s type will by default favour controls. They will support further controls under the mistaken idea that they will one day be defining those controls.
Assuming your translations to be accurate, the Bloc’s apparent interest in criminalizing ISPs fits in well with this misguided ideology. The dominant ISPs are already online with the “control agenda” and criminalizing smaller ISPs is the fastest route to their desired goal of internet oligarchy. Perhaps the biggest irony in the Bloc’s stance is that granting more copyright control to big conglomerates will rapidly further the already serious marginalization of non-U.S cultures.
It’s especially sad that the Bloc don’t understand the copyright is a key issue in Canadian culture, and the survival of Quebecois culture.