Canadian Heritage Minister inadvertently damns his own copyright bill

Michael Geist sez, “Canadian Heritage James Moore appeared on public television yesterday to defend his copyright bill and to oppose a new levy system. In doing so, he made the case for why the digital lock provisions in the bill are so problematic. According to Moore:

‘When I buy a movie, I’ve paid for the movie. To ask me to pay for it a second time through another device – and to assume that I’m doing illegal copying, to assume that I’m being a pirate, to assume that I’m thieving from people because I happen to own an MP3 player or a BluRay player or a laptop, I think treats consumers unfairly.’

“While Moore was thinking of the prospect of additional payments through a levy, the words apply equally to the digital lock provisions that make it an infringement for consumers to circumvent locks in order to watch the movie they’ve purchased on a second device. In fact, in some instances – for example, DVDs with non-North American region codes – it involves infringement for merely trying to access the content for the first time.”

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore on How Copyright Can Treat Consumers Unfairly