I don’t normally make political posts or even opinion posts but the extent to how low key this issue is calls for some action.
Big Media lobbyists are trying to lock down the Internet in Canada through legislation like Bill C-11 and the trade agreements ACTA1 and TPP2.
Bill C-11 has already been passed by the House of Commons and is moving to the Senate for review and debate. It currently includes provisions to lock users out of their own services3 and give Big Media giants increased power to shut down websites have already made their way into Bill C-11.
We’re now looking at the “most restrictive digital lock provisions in the world” and Big Media is still hoping for powers that include website blocking4 and Internet termination, even for unproven allegations of infringement5.
This approach is backwards: it suffocates online choice and it’s patently unfair. It’s time for policy makers to stop listening to megacorporate lobbyists and work to put Canada on the map as a leader in Internet openness and affordability.
Footnotes
[1] Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in an international intellectual property enforcement treaty, primarily lobbied for by big industry in Europe and the U.S. According to the EFF, ACTA raises “significant potential concerns for consumers’ privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet legitimate commerce and for developing countries’ ability to choose policy options that best suit their domestic priorities and level of economic development.”
[2] The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is a multi-nation trade agreement that will rewrite the global rules on intellectual property enforcement, and as such could limit the future of the open Internet. Currently U.S. negotiators are pushing to include copyright measures that are far more restrictive than currently required by international treaties (including ACTA). For more, check out the EFF’s backgrounder here.
[3]The “digital locks” provision of Bill C-11 would render illegal common practices that most people have been engaging in for years. In short, companies can build “locks” into software or hardware, and anyone cracking those locks—either to share content or to modify and even just accessing the content they’ve purchased—would be breaking the law. For more, see Peter Nowak’s analysis here. Michael Geist’s quote cited above can be found here.
[4] Big Media is pushing for C-11 to include the power for courts to issue injunctions ordering ISPs to block access to websites.
[5] Many proposed amendments include rules that mean accused (i.e. not necessarily convicted) “repeat infringers” could have their Internet connections terminated.
From here (click for petition) —> link
Click here to view the Bill —> link
tl;dr It’s basically a Canadian SOPA.
Goddammit, Harper government. How many more reasons do we need until we can fire you?
signed! because i know when america was getting SOPA, a bunch kind canadians and europeans alike signed, too, to help us. uvu so helping back in kind!
