Fwd: Please Stand Against the New Copyright Bill

[CLIFFORD ILKAY]

ted leslie wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:38:12 -0400
> Mr Chris Aitken <chris-n/jUll39koHNgV/OU4+dkA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 
>> Colin McGregor wrote:
>>> FYI:
>>>
>>> Here is the e-mail I received from my MP re: Bill 61. Sigh... not
>>> exactly against the bill, but not exactly for it either...
>>>   
>> This is probably going to piss off a lot of people, but I'm not (only) 
>> trying to be the devil's advocate here, so I'm going to ask anyway:
>>
>> Isn't all this about us wanting something for nothing? I mean isn't 
>> someone spending emotion, time, and money creating, developing and 
>> distributing something that we want it for nothing. And, yeah, I know a 
>> lot of what we're talking about is degrees. I mean when a single mother 
>> is fined thousands of dollars for downloading a few songs for her kid it 
>> seems extreme. Nevertheless, are we not still talking about someone 
>> wanting something for nothing?
>>
>> Just because you get away with compact cassette taping LPs in the 
>> seventies, burning CDs of LPs and CDs in the eighties, burning DVDs of 
>> movies in the nineties, and downloading songs via gtkpod to iPod in the 
>> 00s, is one entitled to this forever? Should we not be grateful we 
>> enjoyed the ride for forty years?
>>
>> I know I sound like an idiot writing all this. I actually have read 
>> quite a bit of the articles and viewed youtube clips referred to in 
>> emails from tlug over the past few weeks, and even had a sit down with 
>> Charlie Angus. I just find it hard to make up my mind on all this. For 
>> instance, I have recently joined SOCAN and am writing and recording 
>> songs with a view to having them published and picked up by recording 
>> artists. I feel I should at least consider supporting the system that 
>> may (in part) support me some day.
>>
>> I'd be interested in your thoughts. Seriously.
> 
> You're absolutely right, most people are thieves, and we get the crappy ass system WE collectively deserve.
> (isn't it nice how that works out)
> 
> The real issue will be when Internet downloading allows for massive theft of HD movies,
> i.e. 20GB a movie (bluray), and people can do this 10-100 times a month,
> i.e. bandwidth caps would be needed that we can only now just dream about,
> but when these 20-50Mb/s feeds i am starting to hear about become more common place,
> and you can thieve a tonnes of HD movies, its going to be a whole different ball game then it is now.
> (this will really! hurt the industry). 
> My guess is it will turn back around to what it was in the 80's in the US, where
> people will get prosecuted for doing this if anymore more then "casually" 
> and it will put the fear into people. 
> But catching people thieving music on Internet, or stereo equipment from wall mart, or robbing money from a bank,
> its all the same - catch'm and slap them around a whole bunch, the world will be a lot better place.
> As for money grubbing record companies, and ticket master, etc, you'd hope a really good Internet ecommerce
> would keep those bastards in check. 
> 
> Do you sound like a idiot? no way!, your just not a thief, and that's a good thing! be proud of it, its a dying breed.

Ted, your message is so full of wrong assumptions that I almost expected 
you to ask those who are against this bill, "When did you stop beating 
your wife?" Who was it that said something like, "Men of conscience are 
so not because of restraint of law but because they have morals."? Most 
people are NOT thieves. Most people are honest and know the difference 
between right and wrong. The minority of people who are thieves will 
remain so regardless of how many idiotic laws are passed. I don't even 
agree that the actions you enumerated are necessarily theft. The devil 
is in the details. People may actually start doing the things you listed 
above as a form of civil disobedience or simply because it would be more 
convenient to format shift by downloading via BitTorrent than swim 
through shark-infested DRM waters just to transfer a 
legitimately-purchased DVD to an iPod.

Enforcing this law will have the effect of eroding respect for laws and 
that cannot be a good thing. There is no effective means of enforcing 
this law without further advancing the agenda of the proponents of the 
surveillance society.

The only two parties capable of forming a majority government are both 
in favour of it, though the Liberals now blather on about "consultation" 
when they themselves were poised to pass something equally stinky when 
they were in power.

This bill, or some variant thereof will eventually pass, if not this 
time, next time, regardless of which party is in power. The proponents 
of the bill are well-funded and know that the message can be manipulated 
and reframed very easily. It's a slam dunk for any halfway capable PR 
firm to isolate the opponents of this bill as cranks and pariahs. Their 
success in doing this with Canadian gun owners, the vast majority of 
whom are law-abiding citizens, serves as the template. We'll be promised 
a Utopian future with wondrous technological advancements if only our 
"antiquated" laws are "modernized" to accommodate the "digital age". 
Industry lobbies and the government have virtually unlimited amounts of 
money to spend on propaganda. The issue being quite complex and voters 
having a notoriously short attention span makes it all but certain that 
the average voter will fall in line. Politicians, most of whom are 
technologically illiterate opportunists, will fall in line after they've 
established that voting for the bill carries little political risk and 
potentially, great upside as they're wooed by lobby groups. After all, 
they have to think about what they'll do for a living after they leave 
office. Welcome to the best government money can buy! I'm waiting for 
the plaintive pleas of, "Do it for the children!" to start soon.

Our elected representatives do not seem to be considering the law of 
unintended consequences. Governments have a tendency to create 
distortions in the market that are often not good. No one has any idea 
about what innovations or what new business models will never see the 
light of day if C-61 is passed. The bill seems an attempt to prop up the 
failed business models of the music and movie industries, and their 
distributors like Rogers and Bell. Witness how successfully Rogers and 
Bell have managed to portray traffic shaping as necessary to prevent the 
collapse of the Internet by those "bandwidth hogs" who are downloading 
"illegal" content. I'm surprised they haven't yet portrayed people who 
use BitTorrent as pedophiles. That will come later I suppose if they get 
desperate.

To borrow from Martin Niemoller's famous quote:

First they came for gun owners but I was not a gun owner so I did not 
speak out.

Then they came for pit bulls but I was not a pit bull owner so I did not 
speak out (never mind that no one can actually define what a pit bull is).

When they came after my right to make private copies of my music and 
movies, and rendered some of my recording and playback devices illegal, 
there was no one left to speak out for me.

Ladies and gentlemen, all hail our new overlords from the MPAA, RIAA, 
CRIA, and other anti-freedom organizations.
-- 
Regards,

Clifford
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