Digital Locks, If your MP doesn't get it they can screw us all.

Do you have itunes, or purchase movies, music or tv shows from some sort of online service? If you answered yes, then you should write your MP and get them go change the digital locks provision in Bill C-32. The conservative party with one notable exception in the Industry Minister Tony Clement who seems to be very technically savvy, and has fought for a lot of the fair use provisions in bill C-32. However due to his position as industry minister or other reasons, has been very silent about changing C-32 to include a fair use provision for breaking digital locks. As Bill C-32 is currently written, all fair use exceptions are over ruled by the digital locks provision. (see my previous blog post).

The conservative Member Ed Fast seems more interested in play politics and with our future in regards to "fair use" or "fair dealing" then doing what is best in the interest of all Canadians.

Mr. Fast asked the question how could justify "eliminating digital locks altogether by allowing circumvention for fair dealing purposes?" to the Canadian Federation of Students and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Both times his response to their answers was "my concern is if you go that extra step and allow circumvention for fair dealing, you've now made it so much more easy to actually allow the cheaters to undermine the system, where digital locks become absolutely meaningless."

He obviously misses the point. Copyright was designed to stop people from making MONEY from other people's work. For example it was designed to stop people from starting selling CD's and DVD's from out of your basement, to people for 5 dollars where Walmart is selling them for 10 dollars; or buying a projector and selling seat tickets to people who go view a movie. A 21st Century example would be to stop someone from ripping a DVD and selling a digital copy of that movie for money.

If you try and stop fair use you will only encourage piracy. Look at what happened in the United States with the DMCA, it has been changed to allow for the ripping and copying of DVD's for personal use and backup.

What's going on and why should I care?

Mr. Fast seems to be having a hard time seeing the light as to why the digital lock circumvention is essential to Canada's new copyright bill. We want artists to be paid fairly, we don't want to be charged $24.99 for each copy of a movie we want to put on our personal devices. Let me see, to put it in money terms, a copy on your computer, copy on your ipod, perhaps your phone, and don't forget a backup copy, that's $24.99 X 4 formats = $99.96 plus tax for 1 movie in 4 different formats. That is ridiculous. Don't even get me started about what happens if you have an itunes account and a 3rd party or non Apple video player. Guess what under C-32 in it's current form it would be illegal for you to circumvent the digital lock on that purchased DVD and rip it to your computer to put on your ipod, android or windows device. That in my opinion is wrong and as someone who has an entertainment server where I put a digital copy of my purchased DVD's and CD's along with the digital copies I've purchased from itunes, and other online stores, to make it easily accessible for my wife and I to watch our shows listen to our music and play our games. I don't know about you but I don't want to be thrown in jail for ripping a DVD.


What can you do.

Email this Ed Fast, the members of the copyright committee and your MP. Tell them why Bill C-32 needs a by pass for consumers to circumvent the digital lock for fair dealing purposes.

Amendment:

Read the transcripts From the Committee meetings here

Red the transcript about by passing digital locks with regard to fair use with Michael Geist.

Trevor Tye

PS. Please feel free to start your letter or email by copy and pasting the following text.


Feb. 16, 2011
First Name, Last Name
Address
City, Province
Postal Code
email


Dear Mr. Ed Fast MP and the copyright committee,

I as a consumer have an answer to your question "Why does Bill C-32 needs a by pass for consumers to circumvent the digital lock for fair dealing purposes?"

{Now put what you do with movies, and music. Also put what you would like to do with all that in the future. Also think about how much money you have invested in the movies and music you purchased and how much you would have to spend if you had to re-purchase everything. Don't you think your entitled to a backup?}

Sincerely,

Your Name

The Usage Based Billing Issue is not over in Canada

The CRTC has recently ruled that they will take 60 days to review the usage based billing decision. According to Konrad Von Finckenstein's speech to MPs - Feb. 3, 2011, he is trying to balance what heavy users pay vs light or low use users. In this respect Usage based billing is the way to go; however we do not have a fair and competitive environment in Canada. We have a an oligopoly; that is why there is no innovation or deals such as price cutting, no heavy use bandwidth plans, nothing. You can argue you get the occasional 4GB XBox by switching but I'm talking about things that matter, like bandwidth caps, reliability, fair pricing on internet use. My situation is unique, If the CRTC wants to treat the internet like water or electricity; as a utility then there should be a way for me to get just a dumb fast pipe to my house, not 3 plans with caps.

Let's say the maintenance cost of running the network is $0.03 / gigabyte, that's what the ISP's need to break even and maintain the network. I would be totally up for paying $0.06 or $0.09 per gigabyte, it would reduce my internet bill to $30 or $45 per month assuming I used 500 GB! Not only that I'm paying 2 to 3 times more then their cost! CRAZY! (They are really making a killing since I have a cap of 125GB and they charge me $70 a month that is $2.10 per gigabyte and an additional $1.00 / GB after I go over the cap)

As a consumer I'm tired of being screwed by the big telcos and cable companies, who are making tones of money hand over fist off the internet. We have no consumer protection here, and as the internet overtakes TV, Radio, and other mediums, It will cost us even more especially with the low bandwidth caps. The best example of this is Telus and their optik tv is tv over the internet, Shaw and their digital phone is simply a type of skype with a phone; which by the way you can do with a Magic Jack and it cost you nothing; (Shaw is making a killing on there phone and they don't have to do real 911 service)

What is_enhanced_911 | Toddler Dies because of Glitch in enhanced 911 Services | Skype VOIP Prices

So in my opinion if your going to have caps then you account for what a family of 4 spending say 3-5 hours at home would use. Assuming there is say 4 people spend at least an hour each on youtube, or watch a movie from netflix, that is 4-6 Gigabytes a day for video, on the minimum, plus any online gaming, surfing and email; I'd say average about 10 GB a day multiply that by 30 days and you have 300GB! It adds up fast. I'm assuming your only spending 3-5 hours a day doing that, imagine if you spent all day watching movies or a marathon on netflix. You will pay and pay big time.

Konrad Von Finckenstein's obviously doesn't understand the technology and Bell, Telus, Shaw and Rogers are trying to protect their old dieing business practices by making the new one unaffordable. So to this I say the CRTC should either get people that understand the technology and are not puppets of these companies or be disbanded. The CRTC has been put on record saying IPTV and VOIP services are NOT internet related. Um? Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure they use the internet, um... yep pretty sure that's why IP stands for INTERNET PROTOCOL!!!!
What is IPTV | What is VOIP

So we can't stop, if we want affordable internet access here in Canada we have to keep up the pressure, I for one don't want our internet access to be like our cell phone access "The MOST EXPENSIVE in the world" I do everything on the net, I don't have cable, or subscribe to anything like that, I have a lan line phone that goes to an answering machine, but that's it. Pretty soon in the future everyone will just have a internet line coming into their house for everything, you won't have 3 times anymore you will just have one and you'll either rent or buy the hardware straight out if you want to have TV or Phone in the "Traditional Sense".

What has to happen, is there needs to be 6 tiers of service. Low/Medium/High Speed with support and Low/Medium/High Speed with no support for people like me who want just a dumb pipe with lots of bandwidth.

Let's make Canada a leader in the world, and encourage other companies to come to Canada for true competition, because as it is right now there are 4 companies and they are more then happy to screw us for as long as possible; and will do anything to make sure the status quo doesn't change.

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Read the CRTC Speech by Konrad Von Finckenstein's yourself.

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An Internet Charter of Rights and Freedoms

I. We have the right to connect.

No person shall be denied connectivity based on race, religion, economic status or sex. With the following exception of promoting HATE Speech, publishing content that violates the rights and freedoms of others and violating basic human rights and freedoms.

II. We have the right to speak.

No one may abridge our freedom of speech. As users we must acknowledge the limitations on freedom of speech (such as hate speech) but they must defined as narrowly as possible, lest we find ourselves operating under a lowest common denominator of offense. Freedom is our default.

III. We have the right to speak in our languages.

The English language’s domination of the internet has faded as more languages and alphabets have joined the net, which is to be celebrated. We want to build bridges across languages and cultures. We will want to speak in our own languages but also speak with others.

IV. We have the right to peaceful assembly.

The right to peaceful assembly is listed separately from the right to speak. The internet enables us to organize without organizations and collaborate and that now threatens repressive regimes and wrong doing by governments as much as speech.

V. We have the right to act.

We connect to speak and speak to assemble and assemble to act. That is how we can and will change the world, not just putting forth grievances but creating the means to fix them; and putting an end to the institutions that would stop the will of the people.

VI. We have the right to control our data.

We control our own online presence and should be seen as much or as little as we choose. Companies and governments do not own the access to data about you. What’s yours is yours. The internet should operate on a principle of portability, so data cannot and should not be held prisoner by a service or government. The User retains control; but keep in mind that when control is given to one, it is taken from another the devil is in the details. This principle speaks to copyright and its laws, which set the definitions and limits of control or creation. This principle also raises questions about whether the wisdom of the crowd belongs to the crowd.

VII. We have the right to our own identity.

Our online identity is made up of our names, addresses, speech, creations, actions, and connections. Maintaining anonymity — hiding one’s identity — is a necessity; thus anonymity, with all its faults and baggage and trolls, must also be protected; to protect the people who disagree with the status quo; the ones who disagrees in matters of popular opinions, beliefs, social and religious values. Not to mention the ever important whistleblower. Controlling our data and our identities — make up the right to privacy.

VIII. What is public is a public good.

The internet is public; indeed, it is a public place (rather than a medium). In the rush to protect privacy, we must beware the dangers of restricting the definition of public. What’s public is owned by the public. Making the public private or secret serves the corrupt and tyrannical.

IX. The internet shall be built and operated openly.

The internet must continue to be built and operated to open standards. It must not be taken over or controlled by any company or government. It must not be taxed; it must not be limited. It is the internet’s openness and potential that gives it its freedom. It is this freedom that defines the internet.

 

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