Alec Saunders SquawkBox

When CBC’s Jesse Brown asked Is Canada becoming a digital ghetto, my answer was an immediate “Of course”.  Canadians who don’t travel or do business outside of the country would never know this, but the wars being fought and won over consumer digital rights in other parts of the world are simply not news here. Canadians will pay more for phones and televisions because the CRTC has sided with carriers on the crucial issue of network neutrality.  Because of our “Made in Canada” copyright reform, ordinary Canadians who buy and share music with family members will become criminals in their own homes.

My American friends speak glowingly of the convenience of being able to download and watch television using services like Hulu.com.  They enjoy generous flat rate plans for telecom that give them virtually unlimited buckets of minutes and are driving a booming mobile telecom industry.

They have these innovative products and services because the regulator in the US favours the consumer and not the entrenched network interests.

Image by yulbuzz via Flickr

The last few weeks have been terrible set backs for personal privacy, and the privileges ordinary people enjoy when they buy and use music, video and other forms of media.

Today’s guest was Dr. Michael Geist, an internationally recognized expert in these areas. We discussed Bill C-61 the Canadian copyright law tabled last week, as well as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement leaked in late May which seeks to enable border searches of computers and music players, and require ISPs to cooperate to provide information about suspected copyright infringers without a warrant.

Michael gave us a brief overview of what the legislation is and how close it is to the DMCA.  Bill C-61, far from being a made in Canada solution, appears to be a clone of the worst parts of the DMCA, with all kinds of negative implications for consumers, and privacy. It has generated massive amounts of commentary here as a result.

We speculated that the reason for introducing the bill now was simply to let it lie over the summer and get it out of the public consciousness.

We also talked about ACTA, which is an international treaty designed to apply the same rules between countries.  Affecting the European Community, Australia, New Zealand, and North America, ACTA purportedly will have far reaching implications, including an enforcement group.  Michael cautioned, however, that the treaty is still not visible to the public, and counseled the government to engage in a more transparent process.

On the call: Michael Geist, Dan York, Jim Courtney, Craik Pyke, Dave Brown, Jeb Brilliant, James Body, Peter Childs, Randall Howard and Dale Gass.

 

 Squawk Box June 19 [32:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Friday, a day after the government tabled its bill on copyright reform, I got a call back from my MP, Pierre Poilievre. I had telephoned him earlier in the week to talk about the rumours I had heard about copyright.

Pierre hadn’t read the bill, but asked what my concerns were anyway. I told him that I couldn’t support the bill because it would make my family into criminals.

First, like many Canadian families we have a stereo in the living room. Over the years we’ve accumulated a tidy collection of CD’s. These are our CD’s for use by our family. They were purchased with family funds. We buy them to share with each other. And, frequently, we rip them to our iPods, play them on our computers, and play them using the networked music appliance I installed by the pool years ago. All of those innocent activities would be illegal under Bill C-61. We would have to own a separate CD for each and every iPod we own in our family in order to be legal.

We have 350 CD’s in our collection and 7 members of our family. If we assume an average cost of $15 per CD, Bill C-61 would result in a bill of 6x$15×350 or $31,500 for us to become legal.

Second, like many other families, we have a collection of DVD’s. Under Bill C-61, we would not be allowed to use those DVDs except in the DVD player attached to our TV. That just isn’t realistic. We regularly RIP those DVDs for playback on our iPods, the Nokia N810 tablet, or a PC. It’s a common and innocent way to use the license for the media that we paid for, and I don’t intend to stop doing it. Yes, the entertainment industry attempts to restrict my use of those DVDs by locking them. I unlock them using Slysoft’s excellent AnyDVD software. The entertainment industry were idiots to lock them in the first place, given the prevalence of digital playback devices. Besides, I paid for a license to the content – not the media, but the content on the media. I should be able to use it in any way that I choose.

If the entertainment industry and the government of Canada want to make ordinary citizens into criminals over innocent actions, then I say “Bring it on”. We’ll see civil disobedience on a scale that has never been seen before in this country.

I doubt it will get to that however. Saturday afternoon I also got a call from Pierre’s fundraising team, asking for my financial help in getting the Conservatives ready to fight an election. I told the person on the phone that I couldn’t support the party while they were proposing legislation that would make me, my wife, and my children into criminals.