[kwlug-disc] Yesterday in C-32 news

[Chris Frey]

On Thu, Nov 04, 2010 at 05:21:50PM -0400, Paul Nijjar wrote:
> Having said that: Sections (3) and (4) may be the protections I was
> hoping for.  provided that the relevant libraries count as either
> information or a technology. So maybe you will still be allowed to
> interface your iPod to Linux, which is an important step. (You may
> even be allowed to write and distribute a Netflix client for Linux if
> one does not exist already.)
> 
> What am I missing here? 


According to Russell McOrmond's FAQ (http://billc32.ca/faq) he says:

-------------------

Q: Did you just say DMCA style TPMs is more fair than C-32 style TPMs?

    A: by Russell McOrmond

    The most obvious feature of Bill C-32 style TPMs, beyond the fact
    that it incorporates both WIPO use technical measures and US "access
    control", is that many of the new limited fair dealings rules are
    very explicitly made subservient to the use of technological measures.

    Examples:


        * 29.22 (1)(c) Reproduction for private purposes
        * 29.23 (1)(b) Reproduction for later listening or viewing
        * 29.24 (1)(c) Backup copies
        * 30.04 (3) and 30.04(4)(a) Educational use of Work available
		through Internet

    Contrast this with the US DMCA which, after defining access control
    technical measures in Title 17, § 1201, includes the following:

        (c) Other Rights, Etc., Not Affected. (1) Nothing in this
        section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses
        to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.

            (2) Nothing in this section shall enlarge or diminish
            vicarious or contributory liability for copyright infringement
            in connection with any technology, product, service, device,
            component, or part thereof.

            (3) Nothing in this section shall require that the design
            of, or design and selection of parts and components for,
            a consumer electronics, telecommunications, or computing
            product provide for a response to any particular technological
            measure, so long as such part or component, or the product in
            which such part or component is integrated, does not otherwise
            fall within the prohibitions of subsection (a)(2) or (b)(1).

            (4) Nothing in this section shall enlarge or diminish any
            rights of free speech or the press for activities using
            consumer electronics, telecommunications, or computing
            products.


    In other words, under the USA DMCA, access control technical measures
    are subservient to their flexible Fair Use regime. Under C-32 not
    only is our Fair Dealings regime not flexible and is far weaker
    than the US regime, many of the few provisions we are offered are
    subservient to technological measures.

    The USA DMCA doesn't protect fairness in the way that the Brazilian
    proposal does which establishes equivalent penalties for hindering
    or preventing the users from exercising their fair dealing rights,
    but the US DMCA is far more balanced than Bill C-32.

---------------------


So even if we are allowed to create compatible software to access locked
media, the locks themselves limit us in other very basic ways.

I'd rather see the locks gone from the copyright law... they have nothing
to do with copyright.

- Chris