Sopa’s Evil Little Brother. Politely.
Posted: January 26, 2012 in Culture, Media, PoliticsTags: Censorship, copyright, Media, Piracy, Revolution, SOPA, Users Rights
I’m a Canadian.
We’re a quiet bunch; prone to enjoying hockey, drinking stronger beer than our friends south of the border, and lovers of fries smothered in cheese curds and gravy.
We also, apparently, have an inferiority complex when it comes to being evil dirt bags, because we’ve decided to pass our very own version of SOPA up here.
Only better*
Meet Bill-C11. Formerly Bill C-32. (I think they thought if they made the number lower people would care less about it?)
Or as we call it up here; Her Royal Majesty V, Zzzzzzz
We like our politics dry up here.
But, as innocuous as it sounds, C-11 does a whole lot that SOPA did with a few extra twists you might not find in the Wikipedia write-up.
Like your PVR? You can’t keep it under C-11.
Like ripping CDs to your iPod? Say bye-bye.
Hey, do you want to be able to unlock your $500 smartphone and take it to a provider less dedicated to violating your wallet? That won’t be allowed either.
Did you get accused of internet piracy but no evidence has been presented and a trial date hasn’t even been set? Under C-11 your ISP will now be forced to terminate your internet access.
And people say that governments can’t be bought.
We’re not going to get Google or Wikipedia to go dark up here. We don’t have as robust a tech industry to act as a public counterbalance to entertainment industry interests. We have a Prime Minister (that’s French for Dear Leader under the current regime) who doesn’t give a suckling goat what the people think about his policies.
But we do have a lot more recourse in our political system to make politicians pay than our Yankee brethren do. (Yes I know I just insulted everyone south of the Mason Dixon line. I’m sorry. You trying caring about foreign geographical terminology when every person you’ve ever met from a particular country still thinks it’s the height of hilarity to ask if you live in an igloo.) We have things like votes of no confidence that can really bugger up a sitting House member’s day.
So, if you’re Canadian, or you’re friends with a Canadian, or you just really like bacon, click the link at the bottom of this article and share it with as many people as you can.
We can’t afford to lose on this one, Canada.
Besides…
Winners Go Home And Fuck The Prom QueenAnd he would know.
-Sean Connery
*And by better, I mean shockingly, horrifyingly worse.
http://www.ccer.ca/canadian-copyright-reform/canadian-copyright-reform-back-with-vengeance/
There are only 14 days left people. Get active.
Updated 10:10 PM Mountain Time
For those who are complaining that C-11 as written isn’t SOPA-like enough to warrant this comparison, please read http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6257/125/ before commenting. Things have changed drastically with respect to this bill in the last week; the really ugly stuff (which has been publicly discussed by members of the C-11 committee.) is in the unpublished modifications in the wake of SOPA’s defeat stateside.
More here, here and here.
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Comments
As a Texan, I find your igloo statement hilarious as I have never even seen a ranch and I don’t own a horse. Stereotypes are fun, eh?
Yes, so, Shaw, Rogers, Telus, Bell, and Cocego to name a few would love to see their business crippled. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Bill-C-11-Fight-Harpers-proposed-Copyright-Act-Defend-Your-Data/238789716190627
Just to let you know the link below is the actual bill on the Parliament of Canada website detailing the entire bill.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=5144516
But I digress, where we can go to sign the petition should be mentioned or highlighted somewhere… Please?
(Because most people care less about you or your writing and more about what the hell is going on with Bill C11.)
Bonus: If you’re going to upload a couple of documents of your “creative writing” (quotations in this case can be interpreted however you’d like them to be), you might actually get people interested in it if you publish it on a nicer looking/less-generic website. But probably not
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6257/125/
Specifically:
“For example, the industry wants language to similar to that found in SOPA on blocking access to websites, demanding new provisions that would “permit a court to make an order blocking a pirate site such as The Pirate Bay to protect the Canadian marketplace from foreign pirate sites.” Section 102 of SOPA also envisioned blocking of websites:
A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address. Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order.
The music industry also wants Internet providers to be required to adopt a termination policy for subscribers that are alleged to be repeat infringers. According to the industry document:
To incent service providers to cooperate in stemming piracy by requiring them to adopt and reasonably implement a policy to prevent the use of their services by repeat infringers and by conditioning the availability of service provider exceptions on this being done.”
Things change sir, and before impugning someone’s knowledge on a subject, you might want to try doing a bit of research first.
Groups push for all kinds of things, this is not the same as them actually being included in the bill and it’s definitely not the same as them being about to pass.
Leave the writing to Michael Geist, he understands how our political system works and you clearly don’t.
eg. You may rip a CD you buy and put it on your iPod, put it on another CD, copy it to a hard drive, etc., as long as you do not sell it or give a copy away.
eg. You may record a performance (TV Show, Movie, etc.) in any way you please, as long as you receive the show legally. You may even keep the recording as long a time as is “convenient” to watch it at another time.
This bill is only for preventing serious copyright infringement and it should absolutely pass.
Things have changed drastically in last week with C-11 and it’s the unpublished changes that cause the most concern.
Are you really so impotent and attention starved that you feel the need to flail around wildly at anyone who has an opinion?
Gotta love the internet.
Please read.
Read this…share this….stop this… Calling upon the New World Creative