Canadian Gov Withdraws DMCA Bill—Can They Withdraw Ours?

[Blodrast]

Our friends up north are showing good sense again. After a substantial public outcry, their gov is withdrawing a duplicate of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (also known as the "Everything interesting you can do on a computer is illegal" bill).

I sincerely hope it goes down in flames, and that legislators plow salt into the fields that grew it. Fair use has been taking a serious beating in the Western world, with copyright holders extending their powers as quickly as the rewritten laws will allow.

Any chance we can repeal the DMCA in the United States? Remind me why it should be a Federal crime for me to decrypt a DVD I own?

Guess I'm the bearer of bad news again...
To be fair, the bill has only been postponed; so withdrawn, but temporarily. They'll put it forward again, although I don't know when.

While it may give us a warm feeling to believe that the reason for this is the protests (and maybe they DID contribute; I'd like to think so, since I did a little myself), Beirut is right: it's a minority gov't, and enough noise has been made over this that they probably want to avoid a possible facedown with the opposition, and risk a confidence vote over something relatively minor like this...

Rest assured that politicians are the same everywhere, and they care much more about the almighty dollar, than their voters...

Any chance we can repeal the DMCA in the United States? Remind me why it should be a Federal crime for me to decrypt a DVD I own?

Actually, as I'm sure you must be aware by now, on the contrary.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...end-money.html

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Congress' copyright reform: seize computers, boost penalties, spend money

By Nate Anderson | Published: December 06, 2007 - 01:16PM CT

A bipartisan group of Congressmen (and one woman) yesterday introduced a major bill aimed at boosting US intellectual property laws and the penalties that go along with them. While much of the legislation targets industrial counterfeiting and knockoff drugs, it also allows the government to seize people's computers.
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The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP... groan) Act of 2007 has the backing of many of the most powerful politicians on the House Judiciary Committee, including John Conyers (D-MI), Lamar Smith (R-TX), and "Hollywood" Howard Berman (D-CA).

In addition to strengthening both civil and criminal penalties for copyright and trademark infringement, the big development here is the proposed creation of the Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (USIPER). This is a new executive branch office tasked with coordinating IP enforcement at the national and international level. To do this work internationally, the bill also authorizes US intellectual property officers to be sent to other countries in order to assist with crackdowns there. In addition, the Department of Justice gets additional funding and a new unit to help prosecute IP crimes.

The bill, which will have a committee hearing soon, is supposed to kick-start the copyright reform process talked about for so long. But copyright reform means one thing to the PRO IP sponsors and another to the consumer groups that have been advocating for it.

Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, said in a statement, "seizing expensive manufacturing equipment used for large-scale infringement from a commercial pirate may be appropriate. Seizing a family's general-purpose computer in a download case, as this bill would allow, is not appropriate."

In addition, she protests the increase in "already extraordinary copyright damages" and calls for damages to be linked more closely to actual harm suffered by copyright holders.

The Digital Freedom Campaign, backed by the EFF, Public Knowledge, and the Consumer Electronics Association, was more muted in its criticism, instead choosing to praise the legislation for launching a "conversation" about copyright reform. The Digital Freedom Campaign's Maura Corbett said that meaningful copyright reform "must include limits on statutory damages and the codification of the vital principles of fair use," and she hopes that PRO IP "will serve as a catalyst to larger, more meaningful reform."

Fortunately, at least some members of the Judiciary Committee are at least aware that the consumer groups have legitimate points to make. Berman, who chairs the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, announced that his subcommittee would hold a hearing next week on the issue.

"As a cosponsor, I obviously feel very strongly that we must strengthen enforcement efforts to fight piracy and counterfeiting," Berman said. "At the hearing, we will be hearing testimony from both industry experts and from labor and consumer advocates to make sure that in doing so, we don't deny appropriate access to America's intellectual property."

Who is thrilled with the bill? The MPAA, for one. MPAA head Dan Glickman, in a statement praising the new bill, said that "films left costs foreign and domestic distributors, retailers and others $18 billion a year," a significant increase from the $6 billion it allegedly costs the studios.

An interesting commentary on it (from a biased source, as usual): http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9829826-38.html

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Major copyright bill boosts penalties, creates new agency
Posted by Declan McCullagh

In the aftermath of the $222,000 jury verdict that the Recording Industry Association of America recently won against a Minnesota woman who shared 24 songs on Kazaa, the U.S. Congress is preparing to amend copyright law.

Politicians want to increase penalties for copyright infringement.

It's no joke. Top Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday introduced a sweeping 69-page bill that ratchets up civil penalties for copyright infringement, boosts criminal enforcement, and even creates a new federal agency charged with bringing about a national and international copyright crackdown.

"By providing additional resources for enforcement of intellectual property, we ensure that innovation and creativity will continue to prosper in our society," Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich) said in a statement.

The legislation, called the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act, or PRO IP Act, is throughly bipartisan. The top Republican, Lamar Smith of Texas, on the Judiciary committee is a sponsor. So is Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chair of the subcommittee that writes copyright law, and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).

The Motion Picture Association of America, which has long championed stiffer copyright laws such as this fall's legislation aimed at file trading at universities, applauded the PRO IP Act as well.

"I believe that the American business community can speak in one voice today in support of these legislative efforts to protect intellectual property," MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman said in a statement. "I am pleased to see a concerted effort by Congress to address this growing problem, and the MPAA looks forward to working with congressional leaders in the weeks to come."

Here are some of the major sections of the PRO IP Act:

* Fines in copyright cases dealing with compilations would be increased. Right now, as in the case of Xoom v. Imageline, the maximum penalty for infringement of one compilation is $30,000. Now courts would be able to make "multiple awards of statutory damages" when compilations are infringed.

* Maximum penalties for repeat copyright offenders would be easier to obtain. Current law says that anyone who "willfully" infringes a copyright by distributing over $1,000 worth of material (including over a peer-to-peer network) is a criminal. The PRO IP Act keeps the 10-year prison term intact for felonious repeat offenders--but, crucially, deletes the requirement that repeat offenders must have distributed at least 10 copyrighted works within 180 days.

* Any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime could be seized by the Justice Department and auctioned off. The proceeds would be funneled to the agency's budget. The process is called civil asset forfeiture, and typically the owner does not need to be found guilty of a crime for his property to be taken.

Probably the most extensive part of the PRO IP Act is its creation of a new federal bureaucracy called the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative, or WHIPER. The head of WHIPER would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

WHIPER seems to be modeled after the U.S. Trade Representative, with the head of the new agency bearing the rank of "Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary." WHIPER's head is charged with being the president's principal advisor and spokesman for intellectual property matters, as well as identifying countries that don't adequately protect IP rights. It gets to create its own official seal as well, and the WHIPER head appears to be paid as well as the attorney general and secretary of defense ($186,600 in 2007).

One of WHIPER's major tasks would be to create a "Joint Strategic Plan" that, in part, involves "identifying individuals" involved in the "trafficking" of "pirated goods." An annual report is due to Congress by December 31 of each year. In addition, 10 "intellectual property attaches" are intended to be dispatched to embassies around the world.

Finally, the U.S. Justice Department's intellectual property enforcement apparatus would be completely revamped. An "Intellectual Property Enforcement Division" would be created and subsume the IP-related functions that the department's computer crime section in the criminal division currently performs. The new division would receive $25 million per year to start with.

So you get yet _another_ federal agency, yay for small gov't! A fed agency whose only purpose is to track down those naughty, naughty downloaders - good priorities here!
And the really scary (to me, anyway) part ? The civil assets forfeiture twist.

Oh, and in case your Christmas basket wasn't full enough, here's some more good news:
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9135/RI...racy+Crackdown

More friendly Christmas letters from the trigger-happy RIAA!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

RIAA Launches Christmas Piracy Crackdown
posted by soulxtc in file sharing // 23 hours 16 minutes ago

4
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The RIAA continues to intimidate the people it once referred to as "some its best customers" with word that it has launched round 11 of its crackdown on campus piracy nationwide.

This time 396 pre-litigation settlement letters were sent out to 22 universities as part of the ongoing campaign against online music theft.

As before, the RIAA is kind enough to allow students the opportunity to resolve copyright infringement claims against them at a discounted rate before a formal lawsuit is filed and bypass the legal process altogether. Each pre-litigation settlement letter informs the school of a forthcoming copyright infringement suit against one of its students or personnel. The letter requests that university administrators forward the letter to the appropriate network user to allow the individuals the opportunity to promptly resolve the matter and avoid having it heard before a judge a jury.


In the eleventh wave of this initiative, the RIAA this week sent letters in the following quantities to 22 schools including:


* Auburn University (13)

* Brandeis University (12)

* Georgia Institute of Technology (16)

* Gustavus Adolphus College (36)

* Indiana State University (18)

* Iowa State University (13)

* Ithaca College (15)

* Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (16)

* Louisiana Tech University (15)

* Mississippi State University (15)

* Morehead State University (17)

* Rochester Institute of Technology (12)

* University of Arizona (14)

* University of California, Davis (14)

* University of California, San Diego (17)

* University of California, Santa Cruz (24)

* University of Dayton (16)

* University of Massachusetts at Amherst (30)

* University of Rochester (15)

* University of Southern California (33)

* University of Washington (16)

* Western Kentucky University (19)


An interesting question that seems left out of the discussion is that are these rounds of lawsuits, or "settlements" as the RIAA calls them, really only a haphazard scheme that unfairly targets only those students who live on campus?

Off-campus students who are of course using an internet connection outside that of their campus network aren't subject to the same sort of scrutiny by network administrators or RIAA hired guns, and in many cases comprise a majority of the student body. In essence, it comes down to a true minority of students who are the subject of these incessant "settlement" rounds by the RIAA and could serve to be another reason why music fans will boycott the RIAA and the purchase of physical CDs, the bread and butter of the record labels.

I mean isn't it unreasonable for the RIAA to focus only on dorm residents just because they are easier to locate thanks to being able to use campus resources? Many more people illegally download in the off-campus student community and go unpunished because the RIAA has no means to find them.

Considering the number of students who are able to illegally download because they no longer live in the dorms, it's uncertain whether the RIAA is going to accomplish anything in the end.

Additionally, the RIAA is basically freeloading off of vital campus resources by making network administrators do all the work and bear all the costs of installing and maintaining anti-P2P and file-sharing measures so that its content won't be illegally distributed. Rather than have funds that could be made available for additional classes in an popular or overcrowded subject, a school has to instead waste it on making sure that little freshman Billy isn't trading Bon Jovi's greatest hits with his buddies.

The news comes on top of recent efforts by Congress to Increase Penalties for Copyright Infringemeny. The “Prioritizing Resources and Organization of Intellectual Property Act of 2007” would strengthen civil and criminal intellectual property laws while ensuring that it gets ample attention from federal govt by creating an office of intellectual property within the White House. That's right, it would create a new federal agency whose sole mission would be to track down on those who illegally share content using P2P and file-sharing services.