Fwd: Please Stand Against the New Copyright Bill

JoeHill joehill-R6A+fiHC8nRWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org
Wed Aug 27 14:50:20 UTC 2008


ted leslie wrote: 

> I guess there is a fine line between breach of contract and illegal
> possession, but some times they are close.

No there isn't, and no they are not. The civil and criminal processes almost
never meet. One is between two people or businesses, the other is between a
_person_ and the State. 

Civil matters _never_  result in criminal penalties, such as jail time. Ever.

There may be some cases where a person is both sued and charged, say where
there was not only breach of contract but also fraud. However the two would be
completely seperate cases, in seperate courtrooms, with seperate judges.

> If you rent something or granted license to use it in a certain way, and
> that expires and you don't give it back, then in some cases you stole it.

Mabye, but that has nothing to do with Bill C-61, or the discussion here
regarding fair use. No one here has said anything that would support renting a
DVD and not returning it.

> Maybe i should re-word what i said as breach on contract, and the
> penalty of such breach can at times be worse then theft of an object.
> I as a producer of something that can be copied, should be able to put
> any right on its use i want, and if you don't like it, don't buy it.
> Most musicians just don't want the stuff copied and given away whily-nilly.
> If a DRM scheme could allow copying amongst your own devices, no one is going
> to argue against that, but usually by allowing that, it extends it to be easy
> to copy it to other people who havn't paid for it.

It's easy for anyone to copy it, no matter whether DRM is employed or not. DRM
has never stopped a single person who wanted to make copies of a song to share
on the Internet, and it never will.

The only people who will be affected by DRM and its codification in this bill
are the ones who really do want to live with the letter of the law, like the
producers of open source software who will be under the gun to write DRM code
into their applications. This would of course be a disaster for Linux and FOSS.
 
> You have every right to extend to someone a copy of a song you wrote, or your
> DNA sequence, both are yours, and can be copied, but you probably want a say
> about how they are copied, who can have them, and how they are used. There is
> no difference between your DNA sequence and notes on a page, both personal to
> you and both deserving of any constraints, limitations to use of copy that
> you want to put on it, else you will not allow copy. So its just about
> honouring a contract. So just keep in mind, when you talk about copying
> things, laws around it, DRM, etc, sub in the words "your personal DNA
> sequence" for the word "song", and see how it sounds, because one day, it
> will be like that, and you might then care about how the stuff is handled,
> and what happens to people that don't handle it with respect to how you (the
> producer of the song or DNA) want it handled. Of course one day people will
> just take some hair they found of yours, throw it into a DNA-sequencer-2000
> from The-Source, then publish your sequence out on the Internet for everyone
> to see, and see what kind of genetic background you have, and what ailments,
> or predispositions you may have. you would probably want some laws against
> people doing this? And its not for anyone to say that  DNA sequences be
> treated any differently then a song, both are entitled to the same freedoms
> or restrictions of use as deemed by the producer.

What?
 
> I think of breach of contract, and if by doing so, one gets benefit they
> shouldn't have got,  as stealing, but i guess technically that's debatable,
> and depends on circumstance. Stealing or breach on contract, whatever, its a
> crime, and people shouldn't do it.

No, breach of contract is not a crime. This is the distinction that is so
important, and that so many people get confused about. If I breach a contract,
and somebody sues me, _there is no criminal offense involved_. Got it? No
crime. It's a civil matter between two people, and this is _always_ how
copyright law has worked. Even under this new bill, there are no criminal
penalties defined as far as I know, it is entirely a codification of civil
penalties.

This is not a discussion of what is or is not criminal behaviour. No one on
here is advocating anything even approaching that.
 
> as for your thoughts on govn't below, i agree,
> but as to who and what rights people have to copy my DNA or my songs, i guess
> we disagree.
> 
> I do believe most people are thieves, history and events show it,
> natural disasters like Louisiana - the wide scale looting, the stats on the %
> of Canadian who have swiss bank accounts, or cheat on tax returns, as it was
> said in the Planet Of the Apes,- Don't go searching for this answer, as you
> will NOT like what you find.

Cheating on one's tax return is _not_ theft, taxes themselves are theft ;)

-- 
JoeHill
++++++++++++++++++++
Bender: Well I don't have anything else planned for today, let's get drunk!
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