There is a lot of discussion around DRM and digital locks This begs the question - when did we stop "owning" things?

In the not to distant past, I went to the store and purchased a cassette tape. I purchased a Book. And when I went home, I had these material things in my possession to do with as I please.

I had control over the things that I payed money for, and at no time did I think that I didn't own these items, or thought they could be taken from me at any time.

If I wanted to, I could "edit" the book by replacing words with a pen. I could "dub" the tape to make a backup, or make a mixed tape for a friend.

Yet with advancements in technology, there has slowly been a "shift" from owning things to licensing them - where the company that I licensed it from can take that license away remotely at any time they wanted to because of a change of terms, or going out of business and turning their servers off.

So, what do I own anymore for my money? Nothing. Copyright law should not prevent people from owning things, or making backups of them, or using them as they always have. It should not prevent people from format shifting to take a DVD and recode it to watch it on their iphone.

Consumer rights have quickly eroded in the past 10 - 15 years. If we are looking to update Canadian Copyright law, returning rights to customers should be paramount.

I would like unfettered access to digital media. DRM is a failure. Let us purchase digital content without artificial limitations (the way the pirates do).

Perhaps government should be less involved in copyright? If convenient and cost effective ecommerce solutions existed then the current levels of policing (at the tax payers expense) may not be necessary.

There is a great presentation on TED.com called "Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity" and I find some of the most thought-provoking points are towards the end of the presentation, concerning our youth:

"We made mixed tapes, they remix music. We watched TV, they make TV…you can't kill the instinct that technology produces, you can only criminalize it. We can't stop our kids from using it, we can only drive it underground. We can't make our kids passive again, we can only make them "pirates". And is that good?"

We have become a read-write culture. Do we really want laws that would have use return to a read-only one?

My biggest concern is the ability to use content I have paid for on various devices. DRM should not be allowed limit the right of the consumer to change the format of content to be able to be played on other devices than it was originaly designed for. I should be able to put the legaly purchased music from any cd onto my computer or iPod.
Allow us to change the format of any electronic content without violating copyright.
Violation of copyright should be focused on financial gain. Content paid for should not in any way be considered to violate copyright if it is being used only for personal use.

La situation actuelle est des plus complexes. Non seulement faut-il ptotéger les auteurs d'oeuvres mais, aussi, faudrait-il protéger les consommateurs qui ont versé le gros pris pour se procurer les équipements qui permettent de copier ces oeuvres. Illégaliser l'achat d'ordinateurs? Interdire les "serveurs"…Interdire les logiciels qui permettent ces activités de piratage..?

I have read many arguments involving copyright for education purposes. On one hand, the people that write the textbooks have invested plenty of work and time into their work, and on the other hand our school systems can only afford so many books at the outrageous prices they are sold for.

Maybe a 'middle ground' solution could be the government itself paying for the text books to be created for a single nominal fee, then publishing and distributing these books to the schools themselves. The book authors recieve a single 'lump sum' agreement, and then the book belongs to the public domain. This will reduce both the cost to the school system and the risk of legal action in photocopying the textbooks.

As part of my masters studies in biz-admin at RRU, I did a research paper on copyright in Canada. My findings were very interesting for three reasons.

1. Lobby groups such as RIAA and MPAA do not have the best interests of Canadian citizens or businesses. They have been caught trying to influence Canadians and politicians through inaccurate data and false reports. Their views on what copyright should mean is not only misaligned with Canadian societal and business needs, it is anti-competitive, and mis-aligned with the new digitial medium we live in today.

2. The financial losses incurred through copyright violations by Canadians are grosely innaccurate by up to 1000%. In fact, Canadian citizens those found to pirate movies and music were actually big consumers for music and movie products - including digital media purchased online, and movie tickets. Furthermore, my data found that claiming a pirated media as a lost sale is innacurate due to the fact that if the person couldn't afford it, it is not lost revenue. It is innacurate to make this claim on sales that would never exist.

3. True financial losses from copyright violations were from two sources. A. Companies that do not accurately track software license usage through mis-management or B. Companies that use software and refuse to pay license costs or hide their use of said products.

Some side-notes:

A. The number of those who could afford to purchase software vs those who pirate is negliable as a majority of them become future customers/clients either through using the same software (paid) at work, or purchasing a new version when released. Viral marketing at it's best - and research from Industry Canada I found confirmed this fact.

B. Copyright is a big issue for libraries, educatational institutions, and small businesses. From photocopying fees to office music, copyright has become expensive to maintain and deal with. For example, a local dentist office has to pay $XXX a year to play music over their speakers - music they purchased from a local store but have to license it with some music right/copyright association to play it to their customers. That is not reasonable as studies have proven that music played stimulates interest in music which in turn creates customers. Second, the fees for photocopying and the amount of time and effort in policy and process creation to educate staff at educational institutions, plus the photocopying fees they are charged, is astronomical and not reasonable. It was found this increased their operational costs and forced them to pass the charges onto the students/families.

It is not reasonable to Canada or Canadian citizens and its businesses to be charged additional copyright fees for photopcopying an article 20 years old - this new practice is expensive to implement, maintain, and is negatively impacting our economy. It more importantly stifles research and education - copyright laws restrict what can be photocopied and how much. Educational and research institutions (primary and post secondary) should be exempt from copyright restrictions and fees to help stimulate innovation and creativity.

I would like to dig into format shifting. Does anyone think there is good reason we should be limited by law from any sort of format shifting? Should copyright cover format or just content?

Expand fair use. Expand personal use. Shorten copyright terms. Forget WIPO.

What I think would be great to see extend from this board is a separate site where users could build a copyright model from the ground up.

Some sort of wiki or collaboration site where vested interests, and casual users, could identify goals, or values, and work towards those goals.

(eg.
value 1 - creators get paid for their work
value 2 - users allowed any medium of their choice
value 3 - whatever

now what is it going to take to get there and what issues will arise.
)

It is unfortunate that I don't have the skill set to be able to set this up.

However, I do think that this could be accomplished and a new model would emerge that is both fair and reasonable, as well as cutting edge in terms of legislation.

In fact, thinking about this, I don't know why more legislation isn't done like this.
Is it reasonable to think that a small group of politicians and their study groups could listen to so many sides of an issue and try to come up with something that is fair to all?

This maybe a little too pie in the sky, but I do think that the interested public - especially reading some of the very well articulated points on this board - could have a lot to offer when it comes to shaping legislation.

Cheers.

The thing that scares me most about recent attempts by other nations to modernize their copyright laws is the side effects on property ownership and consumer rights.

A particular example of such a law is the DMCA in the United States and the fact that it makes it a crime to circumvent copyright protect devices. After this change, regular goods such as consumer electronics and print cartridges started appearing on the market that incorporated highly questionable uses of copyright protection devices that stifled the purchaser's rights to use the devices for whatever purpose they saw fit.

For example:
- Computer Gaming systems such as the Microsoft X-BOX incorporated a "copyright protection scheme" that made it effectively illegal to modify the machine to run software that hadn't been approved and licensed by Microsoft (so-called "Home brew" software), thus preserving the revenue stream generated by this licensing and approval process at the expense of consumers' rights.
- Printer manufacturers such as Lexmark incorporated "copyright protection devices" into their print cartridges with the effect of stifling competition from other printer ink vendors to preserve their high margins on these products and preventing the otherwise natural downward pressure on prices that benefits consumers.

Such grievous abuses come at the expense of consumers' rights and are counter productive to a functioning economy.

Furthermore, the copyright enforcement mechanisms defined by the DMCA circumvent an individual's right to be presumed innocent until found guilty in that a complainant in a matter of copyright infringement can issue orders to an individual's Internet Service Provider to remove content from the accused individual's website without proof or due process or indeed involvement from any sort of law enforcement or judiciary agency. Relating to the specific examples above, this practise has been routinely used to stifle discussion and information about how to refill printer cartridges and use consumer electronics for lawful purposes that do not benefit the commercial interests of their vendors.

It is absolutely critical that discussions of this matter do not centre entirely around people downloading music for free. The film and recording industries are only two users of copyright and any reform must respect the rights to fair pricing and property ownership that Canadians currently enjoy!

I think the concept and goal of of the pubic library needs to be considered. We found a way to have a publicly funded organization offer all sorts of copyright material to anyone at no cost. My local library offers movies, music CD's, books and just about anything. I'd like to know what the government is doing to ensure that this model continues into the future. Bookstores and libraries coexist peacefully, and so should other audio/visual content retailers and creators in that model.

The main problem is that everything relating to Canadian media consumption is archaic and the changes need to come not only in copyright law, but also in updating the laws of the CRTC. These laws are preventing the ability of Canadians to consume media in legal ways on the internet. There are NO good ways to get media legally over the internet in Canada without resorting to piracy. We need services like Hulu, Last.fm, and Pandora to be available in Canada, but they aren't, and they are driving many people to piracy.

The solution to this is the modernization of the copyright and CRTC laws to encourage the consumption of legal media. The solution is not to make the CRIA to have near unlimited power like the RIAA in the USA. If moral, ethical and legal solutions exist, ones where the artist gets paid for their work, people will steer away from piracy and use these services.

How far does copyright extend? What control do others have over the machines we have bought?
"Digital copy is not set in stone - or even paper. As this story has shown, if someone wants to stop you reading something and they have control of the device you read it from, it's all too easy. What's to stop political interference? What's to stop vested interests changing history - or at least history as it's reported? It's been tough to make books disappear in the past because they tend to be scattered so far afield. Now, it seems, words can vanish at the flick of a switch."
-http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/jul/21/ebooks-worry

Is the goal of "updating" copyright to preserve the rights of the original authors, artists and creators? Or is the goal of "updating" copyright to preserve the revenue stream of various media organizations?

Under current law if I buy a book, a song, or a piece of art it is mine. I may do with the original as I as I see fit, I may even copy that original for my private use. I may not sell or distribute that copy. Why does this need to be changed, or "updated"?

If I buy something, why must I then buy it again so I can use my original copy as intended? Just because media formats have changed why must I buy my media over and over? Or why can i not sell or trade my original media as I see fit?

Why should some third party be able to take my media away from me? Or control how I use my media? What if I want to watch my DVD on my laptop, why should I need special software? Or even worse why does the distributor have the right to disable my ability to play my dvd or audio cd on my computer?

How much enforcement is included in the "updated" copyright to force the media companies to actually account for and distribute royalties to the artists they claim to represent and protect?

How much enforcement is included in the "updated" copyright to protect the "end-user"? What rights do I have if the copyright holder retroactively disables or deletes my media as with the recent example of Amazon and Kindle?

I can go on and on. What will these updates do to protect Canadians who create and Canadian end users?

Personal use…

The only thing I download from the internet is TV shows I have missed…I could pay for a 300 dollar DVR but they are unreliable and there is limited space…instead I pay for every channel on my HDTV except PPV and so I feel that since I have already paid for the TV shows I am downloading does that constitute infringement or am I allowed…please only lawers respond.

One problem with this forum: If there are replies, you cannot rate (agree…disagree) with the original comment.

2 ways to fix:
- allow rating both comments and replies (better)
- reword "Rate this comment" to "Rate original comment" (not so good)