Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Canadian DMCA: Check the Fine Print

From Michael Geist:

As expected, the Canadian DMCA is big, complicated, and a close model of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Industry Canada provides a large number of fact sheets here). I'll have much more to say once I've had a careful read, but these are my five key points to take away:

Read more here.

CD and DVD makers could put copy protections onto their discs, or television networks could attach technological flags to programs that would prevent them from being recorded onto TiVos and other personal video recorders. Cellphones would also be locked down, so when consumers buy a device from one carrier, they will be unable to use it with another. Breaking any of these locks could result in lawsuits seeking up to $20,000 in damages.

Gee, yeah that looks like a fair balance..yeah sure. They went out of their way *not* to consult the public. You rarely consult those you plan to fuck over.

Read more here.

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