Government cracks down on copying movies and games [Globe and Mail]

[chrisk]

Government today reintroduced a copyright law forbidding copying movies and games that have anti-piracy measures built-in:

Breaking the digital encryption on a movie DVD – even if copying it for personal use – would make individual Canadians liable for legal damages of up to $5,000 under a tougher copyright law unveiled by the Harper government Thursday.
In what will be music to Washington's ears, the Harper government is moving ahead with a crackdown on copying intellectual property from DVDs to e-books that have a digital “lock” on them.
...

The bill is an exact copy of what the Conservative government tried to pass before the 2011 election.

Not all is lost, though:

At the same time, the bill tries to soften the blow for consumers by legalizing commonplace but grey-area practices such as backing up the contents of a music CD, home recording of TV episodes for later viewing or copying legally acquired music to a digital player.

...

Industry Minister Christian Paradis and Mr. Moore unveiled the legislation, which will be tabled in the Commons. It targets big online pirates instead of individual freeloaders and would in fact lighten rather than increase maximum legal penalties for those who illegally download or upload copyrighted works on the Internet for non-commercial reasons.
The government is proposing to scale back the total legal damages that individual Canadians could incur for piracy of goods for personal use: to a maximum of $5,000 for all infringing activity, from an existing ceiling of up to $20,000 per protected work.

Conservatives crack down on copyright scofflaws - The Globe and Mail

I don't understand why its OK to copy a music CD but not a movie. Anyone shed some light on this for me?

That said, good to see that these silly lawsuits asking for insane amounts like in the US will not be happening here.

[ultraman7k]

so I guess this means that even if you own the game, you can't apply a no-cd/drm or crack it?

I wonder how it will go for unlocking phones then...will those be next on the agenda?

[SKYMTL]

It targets big online pirates instead of individual freeloaders and would in fact lighten rather than increase maximum legal penalties for those who illegally download or upload copyrighted works on the Internet for non-commercial reasons.

IMO, this is the way it SHOULD be done.

[chrisk]

So whats the difference between backing up songs to another device, and backing up a movie to watch on an extender or portable device?

[upcoast604]

Good old Canadian double standard law. From how I'm reading it is that if it has a digital lock it's against the law but if there's no lock it's ok but if you upload said unlocked tv show you're bad but what law will a person break if they invite all thier friends over to watch the said un locked tv recording and does this cover movies on regular tv channels or super chanel or hbo.If you record a show or movie off a USA tv channel will the person be extradited to the US (satire) . I'm thinking lawyers are gonna have fun with this mess. Would have liked to see more ambition on getting drugs off the street.

[EmptyMellon]

Originally Posted by chrisk

So whats the difference between backing up songs to another device, and backing up a movie to watch on an extender or portable device?

The one provides a ready-access to the media (like a bookcase), while the other provides a safety-storage of the media (like a storage bin). I know you can argue that the digital back-up can be readily accessed, but then you would be arguing against a lot of people that "back-up" their "purchased" media.

[Dr_BenD_over]

Given how some of the "protective" DVD cases have destroyed the DVD's in them, I should be able to legally back them up or be supplied a free replacement.

[ilya]

Originally Posted by chrisk

So whats the difference between backing up songs to another device, and backing up a movie to watch on an extender or portable device?

My guess:

With audio, DRM is so ridiculously easy to bypass it's not even funny, I could teach a 3 year old to do it. The DRM system for music is fundamentally broken, it not only does not protect against piracy, it also impinges on the rights of the consumer. Many audio players will not play songs with DRM and songs with aggressive DRM will lock up after being copied a certain number of times. (as little as once) So allowing the cracking of audio DRM essentially just permits the consumer to actually use the product they purchased.

But as an American citizen I must say: I live in Canada to get away from the that is the US of A and yet it seems like I'm slowly bringing the A with me.

[geokilla]

Typical. I won't change my habits though.

[Herne]

Now that this is solved can I stop paying my $0.29 per unit on blank CDs that I have never ever used to write Canadian recording artists?