Our conservative federal government is set to table their proposed amendments to the Copyright Act tomorrow (June 12).
The National Post has reported that the act may include the following provisions:
- Making it illegal to unlock the full potential of cellphones you own.
- Making it illegal to copy music you have purchased from protected CDs to your mp3 player.
- Forbidding the right to “time shift” tv shows onto personal video recorders if flagged by broadcasters.
When used in the context of copyright “time shift” is a fancy way of saying “record a show in order to watch it later”. So it may soon be illegal to record your favourite TV show.
There may also be a $500 fine for each illegal file shared online.
These amendments are a direct result of US political pressure led by the lobbyists for the major US media corporations. In bowing to this pressure our conservative government shows once again that they neither understand nor care about our culture or our rights.
All works of art and technology build on previous works. Locking down our culture along with our digital tools is a grievous error. Each and every year it gets easier to copy information. It is what humans do, we propagate information, we copy, we share, we appropriate, we imitate, we innovate, we remix, we collaborate.
More information:
- Michael Geist
- Excess Copyright - Howard Knopf
- Fair Copyright
- Property and Privacy - Red Librarian
- Kevin Kelly’s Better than Free
- Canada Copyright as a comic book [pdf]
Previously on StungEye:
“Good artists copy; great artists steal.” —Pablo Picasso ;)
