Legal Niches

Canadians Argue Against DMCA-like Law in Mini-Documentary

By gamepolitics

The Obama administration slammed Canada last week, adding our northern neighbor to a list of what the office of the U.S. Trade Representative says are nations which fail badly at copyright protection. U.S. media rights holders, including video game publishers' lobbying group ESA, lauded the USTR's addition of Canada to its Priority Watch List.

Some Canadians reacted with anger, claiming the action was driven by America's corporate IP lobby and arguing that Canada should not bow to such consumer-unfriendly pressure.

Via boingboing, we've gotten a look at C-61, a mini-documentary which addresses the Canadian government's so far unsuccessful attempt to pass DMCA-style copyright law.

boingboing's Cory Doctorow, who provided some narration to the film, comments:

A group of Canadian copyfighters produced this mini-documentary, "C-61," about the proposed new Canadian copyright law, which the US government is pressuring Canada to pass (that's why the USA added Canada to a nonsensical list of pirate nations).

 

Previous attempts to pass this bill have been a disgrace -- famously, former Industry Minister Jim Prentice refused to discuss the bill with Canadian record labels, artists, tech firms, or telcos, but did meet with American and multinational entertainment and software giants to allow them to give their input. In the bill's earlier incarnation as C-60, its sponsor, Sam Bulte, was caught taking campaign contributions from the same US and multinational entertainment companies...

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on May 07, 2009 (boomark / email).