We’re living in a modern world now. Get over it. If your current profit model requires totalitarian police state enforcement in order to survive, you need to go extinct like the dinosaur you are, or evolve and embrace the modern world. If you think it’s wrong to download music, too bloody bad, it’s not going to stop no matter how many people you throw in jail.

Just look at the US and their so called war on drugs (an example which our Canadian government is trying to follow). They put more and more into enforcement, and yet more and more people consume these substances. Intellectual progress falters because nobody’s willing to look at “drugs” from a realistic standpoint.

Same sort of thing happens with “piracy.” Enforcement does nothing but bring about more fuss, more piracy, and better P2P technology. Meanwhile, the people who try to defend internet neutrality put on an anti-piracy face in an effort to gain support from the corporate brainwashed status quo and totally lose touch with reality.

Just grow up and admit it. Piracy is here to stay. Get beyond that basic realization and you can go on to find another way to feed and clothes artists. (Maybe try using corporate taxes to fund art programs, or increase the minimum wage so people will actually have free time to be artistic? Nooo, that would make too much sense…)

Purchasing a CD and burning myself a copy to keep in my car, so that the original work remains in mint condition (because cd’s that get left in my car often become destroyed within a few months) and to protect my investment should not be any more an illegal activity than taking high-resolution photographs of my hockey cards and storing them on my computer so i can enjoy them without having to handle the originals with bare hands.

The use of copyrighted materials in public exhibition should be permissible in various circumstances such as in a relevant lecture at a university, or in a report made by a student, where the original work is cited, and due credit is given to the owner. If at a child’s birthday party there are 20 kids all watching a Disney film (found on a store-purchased DVD) on the host’s big screen TV, should this be considered an illegal and criminal copyright infrindgement offence? I think not. This assessment may be incorrect, and I am open to correction if a logical argument to the contrary can be provided, but I personally see this situation along the same lines as shutting down a child’s lemonade stand because they don’t have a vendor’s permit: A legalistic and dictatorial pursuit of the the very letter of the law, rather than a logical and tempered approach to trying to understand and encourage the spirit under which the law was originally intended.

I am also not entirely opposed to one-time activation requirements for software; Perhaps the following could be a useful model that is appealing to both parties: The copyright protection would come in the form of a unique key you must obtain either over the internet, phone, or postal service (postage perhaps paid by the game company for those who choose to have a paper serial key mailed to them due to online access or telephone access restrictions?) This serial will obviously get cracked (eventually) by nefarious individuals who simply refuse to pay for anything regardless of fairness or quality of product; this must be considered true for whatever technology comes about and accepted as regular loss just as theft is factored into the budget of all retail store operations. Impeding the ease of use of the legitimate consumer because of the actions of the thief is not good business practice. The legitimate user will be able to set up an account with the developer/distributer/etc containing minimal personal information (secret question, last 4 digits of payment option, passphrase, or email address) and is simply required to perform this action within 20 days of installing on what is deemed to be a ‘new’ computer. Having a computer make this judgement without tyrannical prohibition of new or upgraded components is not difficult code to integrate into an application if the programming staff is properly educated and given the appropriate amount of time for debugging etc. Postulating this to university students in a software engineering program (perhaps for extra credit or co-op opportunities) might even yield some fascinating new innovations in this field and foster intellectual growth and higher education. Once such an enforcement algorithm is appropriately integrated into the application, consumers will have to adjust to a minor inconvenience when changing motherboards, operating systems, or other ‘major and irregular’ system tasks. This is no more inappropriate or unnecessary, and should be viewed as no larger an inconvenience than having to carry your car keys with you everywhere you go, and needing to turn the ignition over with that key every time you wish to drive.

This new DRM being proposed by Bill C-32 is taking that example to the next level, and seems to immitate a situation in which you are required to use GM’s On-Star Service to speak with a customer support agent and confirm 2 pieces of personal ID before they remotely start your car for you. Failure of this security check, or a weak/damaged connection to the network will result in your car not working. You also receive a fine and possible jailtime if you modify your car to circumvent the ‘feature’ (which you own; this example applies no more to rented, leased or financed vehicles any more than personal fair use would apply to a rented DVD. Just clarifying that to pre-emptively nix that counterargument thought process).

The fact that this government has ignored the voice of the people (as expressed by ‘over 90% of the more than 8,300 submissions [that were] opposed to a repeat of Bill C-61′ ) needs to be addressed, and in my personal and humble opinion should result in a vote of no-confidence in this current minority government.

That said, the digital locks portion of the bill needs to go no matter who is responsible for it.

Actually this bill was written by the Paul Martin Liberals during their minority government.

If this bill passes, there will be, as such, we want to stop it from going through.

I believe Canada doesn’t have any legal prohibition on DRM circumvention right now, so there is nothing to eliminate.