Voting Day -1

Some random thoughts:

It’s all over tomorrow. From what the polls are saying, this looks like it may be a parliament nearly identical to the one that preceded it. One thing I would like to see is that the Conservatives make no more inroads in Ontario. It is still unconscionable to me that Flaherty would badmouth this province as the “last place” to invest because he was unsatisfied with our corporate tax rates. Whatever you feel about tax rates the sheer stupidity of a federal ministry deriding one province as no place to do business because it frustrated his goal of creating a low-tax “brand” for Canada is mind-boggling. By the way Jim, the fact that equalization screws over Ontario may also have something to do with our tax rates.

I really hope that Harper does not get a majority, I like my iPod.

Does anyone know what Harper would do with a majority? His government put up the censorship provisions in bill C10 (something they surely did not run on) and then dropped them in the new platform. Remember income trusts? The greatest threat from Harper is that it is simply impossible to predict what policies he will implement. He might extend the Afghan mission indefinitely, or break up the CBC or, well, who knows?

This could be three minority parliaments in row. Has the sky fallen? Proportional representation will seem less scary the more we see minority governments operate just fine.

All Your Content Are Belong to Us

Michael Geist links to a Canwest article suggesting that consumers may lose digital content they have already paid for under provision in the new copyright bill. It’s truly disturbing to see how deep in the pocket of special interests Jim Prentice really is. This bill appears set to give them everything they want.

I know the Liberals are backing away from voting down bills these days, I guess reckoning that they can just reverse things when they get into power again, but damn it, they better stop this one!

Making Music Suck

This post from Saskboy didn’t exactly warm my heart. $500/download? Isn’t the legit cost of a song ~$1? What’s the logic here? That I’ve made 500 copies and hidden them somewhere, that I’ve let at least 500 other people download it? On what basis is such an assumption made?

I think someone ought to start asking every MP that supports this kind of legislation about their own iPods and hard drives. Is everything on there legit? Can you prove it? What about your kids, what are they listening to, and more importantly, where did they get it?

Making the Internet Suck

Michael Geist has a column in the Star today about attempts to “lock” the internet down. Since the people who want this kind of thing are media content providers, you don’t tend to hear a great deal about this in the media content that they provide. It’s being considered quite seriously elsewhere in the world, Geist points to the continent:

“More recently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a plan that would mandate country-wide ISP filtering of copyright infringing content. Although a similar pan-European proposal was defeated earlier this month, few believe the issue is dead, particularly given the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s claim last Thursday that 2008 will be the year of greater ISP responsibility.”

This is an alarming, statist solution to concerns over intellectual property rights. Once we start filtering for copyright, the state will have an incredible apparatus with which it may monitor internet content. The temptation to block all manner of other content will be immense. The implications for our freedom of expression from this are surely greater than anything that can be mustered by the Alberta Human Rights Commission. I’m not sure why I haven’t seen libertarian-oriented conservatives aren’t screaming about this issue. (If you are a libertarian conservative and you have been, tell me and I’ll link to it.)

Owning an iPod doesn’t make you a criminal

This is the gist of a ruling that struck down a new levy that was to be charged on MP3 players and other types of digital storage. These sorts of policies seem to derive from the perceptions of the recording industry and its fellow travelers that its customers are essentially a band of thieves. This sort of behaviour leads even those of us who really aren’t downloading to wish for the ultimate demise of the majors so that they may be replaced by some kind of direct artist-to-consumer online distribution model. Maybe that’s utopian, but given how the major players in the recording industry treat us consumers, I think it would be a nice bit of karmic justice.

Best Buy: Defender of Fair Use

Wait… what? Michael Geist points out an op-ed piece in which consumer electronics giant Best Buy lays out some very sensible provisions for any new copyright law:

1. No private copying levy
2. No multiple payments to collectives for the same transaction
3. Protection from DRM rather than protection for DRM
4. Flexible fair dealing
5. No lawsuits for private, non-commercial activities

I’m starting to become cautiously optimistic that the country has woken up sufficiently to the possibility of a really terrible new copyright law. That being the case, I hope that it will be a great deal more difficult for Jim Prentice to sneak by some kind of truly terrible law without people noticing. Certainly if Best Buy perceives this as a threat to their business they have the capacity to make a great deal of noise about this.

More Stupidity From The Recording Industry

Now in the US the RIAA is saying that you can’t even make an MP3 from a CD that you legally own! This is insanity! Does the recording industry really really think that we should buy a CD and pay for a legal download of the same song for our own personal use.

Bullshit.

I think it’s time to start calling out these characters because I suspect that none of them do these sorts of stupid things themselves. Let’s take Terry Corcoran for example, he’s clearly in favour of these kinds of stupid laws with no fair-use provisions. Does Terry Corcoran have any music on his computer that he ripped from legally purchased CDs? Does any member of his family have anything of this sort?

I highly doubt at this stage that there are very many computer users who have not backed up at least some of their music collection onto their hard drives. Pundits who support these draconian laws, politicians who enact them, lawyers who file suits based on them – I suspect that most of these people have intellectual property that somehow falls outside the extremely narrow provisions of the music industry.

From the People Trying to Write Canada’s Copyright Law

Apparently they are creating “video press releases” in the US that are pretty much regurgitated by local news. Something to be aware if you see a fawning story about CDMCA here on the local news.

The Dumbass Copyright Law Came Back

While I was away from this here blog the Conservatives dropped their copyright legislation, but now they appear to be bringing it back. Scott has called on everyone to tell their MP how stupid this law is. In the meantime, despite another search, I still cannot find a peep from the Blogging Tories. Maybe this story is off-message for them because it isn’t about Islamofascist abortionists faking global warming because Dion isn’t a leader. Or something.

Copyright Law Round Up

Canada is proposing serious changes to copyright laws and yet, outside of the blogosphere and other geek domains, it would be hard for anyone to tell. If you search for “Canada copyright law” in Google News the top stories are dominated by sites like Slashdot with only one mention from the Grope & Flail over a week ago as well as Reuters story even older than that.

Among blogs I usually read, Saskboy has been relentless in following this issue while JJ points us to, among other things, a news aggregator on the topic.

Do you like the internet?

Do you own an MP3 player?

Do you like to backup your media from one format to another?

Do you enjoy satire?

If you answered “yes” to any of this, this law will affect you. For what it’s worth, I was going to see if there had been any comment on this matter among the Blogging Tories (I was wondering whether the only conservative position on this was strictly corporatist CRIA-worship or not), but they haven’t said anything at all.