Digital Copyright Canada

 > On Sat, 2005-07-02 at 14:38, Russell McOrmond wrote:
 >
 >>Looking for feedback!
 >>http://www.flora.ca/russell/drafts/c60-tpm-dvd.html

   I have expanded the ending based on some conversations about 
"services" that are happening in another forum.

"To put these in context, section 34 of the copyright act deals with 
remedies for infringing acts. The more I think about this the more I 
believe that what is changing is not what activities are infringing but 
the casting of a much wider net of who will be be claimed to be partly 
liable for any infringing acts. This will inevitably include innocent 
bystanders who are providing software that controls technology, or 
documentation about technology, that are abused by someone else for an 
infringing purpose. While not a prohibition against "devices" as was 
seen in the USA, it may have the same effect given software is often 
understood as providing a service."

Sydney Weidman wrote:

> One thought that bothers me is this: The "exemption" sentence in 34.02
> currently reads:
> 
> "for the purpose of an act that is an infringement of the copyright in
> [the work]"
> 
> but it could have been written as:
> 
> "for the purpose of an act that would otherwise be an infringement of
> the copyright in [the work]"
> 
> Couldn't that be interpreted to mean that an infringement of 34.02
> itself constitutes an infringement and is therefore subject to the
> restrictions of 34.02?

   I am wondering just how strongly tied to the other parts of section 
34 that these provisions will be interpreted.  To be honest, I don't 
know and the fact that this bill creates so much more uncertainty is 
itself a legitimate complaint.

> then you can't rent or sell it, distribute it in any way etc. What I
> don't understand is what the phrase "in a manner that does not give rise
> to the remedies under [subsection 1]" means. What types of circumvention
> *do not* give rise to remedies? Circumvention for the purpose of
> non-infringing acts? If that is so, is this section making it illegal
> for video stores to remove region codes and that sort of thing? That
> would render 34.02 more than a NOP.

   One of the things we in the technical community have a hard time with 
is the "who is liable to who" question.   We assume that if copyright is 
infringed, that one person is liable for it as they are the person that 
made some sort of choice to infringe.

   Current copyright law was designed for an entirely different era and 
an entirely different way of looking at things.   A single act can have 
many people liable to many different copyright holders.

   Peer-to-peer "sharing" of music is an example where an infringer 
could be liable for royalties (right of remuneration) to the 
songwriter/publisher, as well as liable for the performers performance 
and then mechanical rights in the recording.  There is then the person 
who "sent" the song and the person who "received" the song, along with 
the claim in many jurisdictions that various third party intermediaries 
(authors of software, marketers/promoters of software, ISPs, etc) are 
also liable.

   While it would be appropriate to protecting creativity and innovation 
to compress the copyright act so that an infringing act causes one 
person to be liable to one copyright holder, Bill C-60 takes us in the 
opposite direction by making things even more confusing than the 
existing act.

-- 
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  1800+ Canadians oppose Bill C-60 which protects antiquated Recording,
  Motion Picture and "software manufacturing" industries from change...
  Sign the Petition Users' Rights! http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/
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