New Copy Right Bill (2008)

So what's in the new copyright bill?


1... copying that DVD is against the rules. Period. No no no .

2... Time shifting is illegal (copying and watching it later) no no no !

3... Statutory damages are in. That means they don't have to prove they were harmed by your copying they can just have the court penalize you off the top.

4...photographers are now out of work.

Current copyright law in Canada says that if you commission a photograph (or portrait or engraving), then by default you're the copyright owner. The proposed law would change that to make the photographer the owner instead.

That means you probably couldn't stop the photographer from using photos of your wedding or your baby however he or she wants to. You could, of course, change this by contract, but only if you're smart enough to do so, and you'd probably have to pay for it.

Now, to go along with this change, there's a proposed new provision that would allow you to use those commissioned photos for private or non-commercial purposes. So e-mailing them to grandma might be okay, but posting to a public Facebook page puts you over the line.

And, as far as I can tell, it would still be strictly prohibited to tamper with any technological locks on the photo, or to mess with the photographer's watermark, for example. The bottom line, then, is that the photographer calls the shots when it comes to copyright.


Umm...I'm gonna hire you to take my wedding photo...but you own it ? I CANNOT put it on the web or you can sue me for $20 000 ???? I can just see some photographer lining up five or ten rubes , waiting for all of them to do this , and then suing them all. 2 million dollars , lawyer gets half , his business is toast but he's got a million dollars in his pocket what does he care ?

bought a digital camera for 69$ a few years back. Just plug it into the usb port of your computer , down load the pics. You're the photographer , you do as you please. This bill puts photographers out of business if it passes. Pretty amusing actually.

5...Don't cross the boarder with your lap top or your mp3 player, they're allowed to search it , fine you to death , the whole nine yards.

6...Don't break any digital locks. 20 000$ fine.

7...Downloading movies is now encouraged by this law, so they yammer on about. Obviously they havn't heard of Rogers 60 gig per month limit or bells 30 gig limit. Not to mention Bell choaking down any movie downloads except from their own movie sales sight.

8...copying for use of parody is illegal , but criticizing is ok. So I guess this blog will stay legal. :)

9...No copying exceptions for teachers and libraries. If the copy right holder says no , "no means no !"




So ...what are the implications of this bill , you ask ? My take is as follows.
Photographers are out of business. Digital camera makers are in. You always wanted to take up photography as a hobby ? Nows the time. All the professionals just got the boot.

MP3 players are toast. We'll be going back to portable cd players shortly. Not that big a deal really, but I'll miss my Zen Stone. Start building up that CD library.

The music industry will be coming out shortly with a new cd format, and players, whereby every tune is "digitally locked". Since it's a $500 per tune fine to unlock them, and $20 000 per tune if they find their way onto the web , don't expect many people to try and crack it. Not in this country. The music industry has always been good about backwards compatability, but you can expect all new cd's to be in the new format.

Don't trade tunes / movies on the internet. The ISP's (rogers and bell for example) can be legally required to rat you out , and then you're toast. PS: Bankruptcy doesn't cover what you owe the government. Not in canada. Can't make your back taxes go away like that :) Or your court judged fines.

Phones are still locked and you're not allowed to break any kind of digital lock, not even on a phone you own 100% (guess you don't totally own it) but thats kind of irrelevant to most people since there are cheap pay as you go phones for less than 80$ at wall mart (saw them sunday three days ago) so thats only relevant for ripping of people who like to buy 500$ phones.

Cargo pants will make a big splash. Those portable cd players don't fit well in a regular pocket. *grin* Cheap phones and digital camera's (if your phone doesn't have one that lets you keep the pic, my uncles phone wants to charge him to print of pics and mail them to him)

If you lock something down too much , and it's only a toy , it's not required, people will stop using it. Anyone who understands this law will never use the services of a photographer again, and after a couple of scoundrals hit the news suing the pants of people and them losing their houses because they put their wedding pics on facebook all photographers will get smeared with that brush and go down in flames. MP3 players are toast , and no ones taking a lap top across the boarder anymore. Even if the lap top is clean they're gonna want to search it. Oh you put linux on it ? Gee, I don't know how to do that, you go wait over there until I get someone who can ...umm...actually there is no one , I'm gonna have to confiscate that ...

Oh , mp3 player ? Let me hear the tunes ? wow..nice beatles tune ...over 80 tunes on this thing huh ? That will be 40 000$ fine , pay up . No money ? American jail time. Hope you like being repeatedly sodomized.