The Canadian government has introduced its draft legislation for a “Canadian DMCA” — a suite of laws to bring Canadian copyright into harmony with the bad treaties that broke the American copyright system in 1998 with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
In many respects, this is vastly superior to the US version — after seven years of horror stories, it would be criminally stupid for any government to consider a law as bad as the DMCA — but there are still some substantial problems.
Michael Geist, the Canadian academic copyright lawyer and columnist, has a great first look at the new proposal:
The package will include an anti-circumvention provision applied to copyright material. There is no mention of extending the provision to devices (as is the case in the U.S.) and the specific reference to applying the provision to copyright material suggests that the provision will limit its applicability to circumvention to commit copyright infringement. The rights management information is similarly limited to instances to “further or conceal copyright infringement.” While no anti-circumvention provision would be better, this suggests that the Canadian provision will feature some real balance.
Moreover, the FAQ makes clear that “the circumvention of a TPM applied to copyright material will only be illegal if it is carried out with the objective of infringing copyright. Legitimate access, as authorized by the Copyright Act, will not be altered.” This is very different from anti-circumvention provisions found in the U.S. However, the FAQ also notes that circumvention for the purposes of private copying will not be permitted, meaning people may find themselves paying for a CD and paying a levy on blank CD yet unable to make the copy of the underlying CD.
Update: Ian sez: The government has posted the full text of all 700 comments from the public review process.
Included are Cory Doctorow’s submitted comments and Tod Maffin of the CBC’s Definitely Not the Opera has identified some broadcasting-related submissions:
- Canadian Association of Broadcasters
- SOCAN: Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publisher of Canada
- National Association of Broadcasers (American group)
- ACTRA: Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television, and Radio Artists
- The Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada (AMTEC)
- Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA)
- Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA)
- Copyright Coalition of Creators and Producers
- Periodical Writers Association of Canada (PWAC)
- Writers’ Guild of Canada
- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)/ Société Radio-canada(src)