Digital Rights Management in Canada

As reported widely across the Net recently, the government is planning to bring Canadian copyright laws into the 21st century by striking down fair use requirements. This transforms Canada from being a nation who has consistently dragged its collective feet on the issue into a state of being one of the world‘s strongest protectors of digital rights. For what follows, lets take it as fact I don’t condone illegal music downloads. This is an honest position because I value the sound quality CDs provide. There are several innovative and intelligent approaches of updating copyright laws one could take. Looking at the country it is easy to recognize that technology has changed how the citizenry uses the very culture surrounding us.

The Conservative government has taken the exact opposite approach, and if they’re feeling particularly honest, they would admit it’s a play right from big media conglomerates. The planned laws are simply draconian. The proposed changes are unnecessarily broad and choke creativity in ways that are an affront to common sense. Nor does the policy represent the views of a majority of Canadians or musicians. It’s frustrating to be dictated the terms of innovation by governments and media companies instead of by what seems to come naturally from technology. Pile onto this questions of free speech and we have a big ol’ mess.

Fair use is an important factor in all this. In any rational universe, fair use means that if you legally purchase a CD (or DVD) one can do pretty much do whatever they want with it (short of putting it up on the web for redistribution or making and selling illegal copies of course). It is fair to assume the consumer has well grounded expectations for the freedom to play that media on any chosen device. The governments seeks to stop this practice. Ripping CDs for personal use is banned. Backing up one’s own CDs, say maybe to take to Japan, will be outlawed. Did the government feel a strong need to make every citizen a criminal? Maybe the very fact it touches every citizen negatively should suggest a serious reevaluation of their approach is needed? Furthermore, this type of legislation attempts to steer technological innovation and tinker with the free market by limiting access to products that have useful legal daily applications (like backing up hard drives).

I think it’s common sense, but the government is suggesting: If you by Brand A rice you, by law, have to use Brand A rice cooker. Cooking rice on the stove will no longer be an option for the consumer. A creative person could find an unlimited number of absurd enjoyable analogies from daily life if they were so inclined.

Why are other firms and numerous people able to harness technology creativity for profit? This could be a music company’s biggest opportunity ever, but they are squandering it by suing music fans. Upon hearing so many small Canadian bands ecstatic with free internet distribution of their albums globally, it occurred to me the situation is thus: The big five music companies have simply been unable to tap into the movement. They want to crush the industry because they are not the ones making the profit; in fact a large community of local artists are making the profit. With a torrent’s ability to distribute a studio-quality lap-top made album, big companies aren’t even in the picture. And only smaller groups are nimble enough to find secondary forms of revenue. I would warn against investing in media companies with their bloated legal departments. A recent incident in London shows the absurd lengths that media companies are now willing to go; trotting out some 30 dead musicians to sign a petition against illegal downloading. Who do they think they’re fooling? John Lennon steps to the mic: “Yes. It was my solemn dying wish for Sony Music to forever own, protect and solely profit from my music.”

This seems to follow a similar trend in software. The Apple brand may have a slogan of “Switch,” but with the release of the iPhone cement themselves into a locked system; stopping the use of third party apps and the ability to switch carriers. This simply translates as less completion in the free market and gradually worse innovation and products. This follows black predictions about Microsoft’s new Vista OS, which some executives are stating “could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.” (<— real executive quote!) Besides the fact that the Vista OS is designed to be paranoid in regard to hacker attacks, boarding on schizophrenic, thus making the OS unstable to the point of barely being functional, the limits placed on the user are unimaginable and burdensome. This is all at the behest of media companies trying to protect their property. Which is fine by me, but I would like to point out it has had an unintended negative effect on the direction of technology; far from being more innovative, technology is being purposely crippled. Linux in all this is growing like a wild fire. They have a completely open market, but in a twist of 100 years of mainstream economics, don’t work off the principles of competition, but cooperation.

I don’t expect anyone to go out and do anything. I just thought I would share.