The Conservatives appear to have delayed introducing the new DMCA-like copyright bill I mentioned in a previous post. Some people are saying that this delay is a result of the vocal reactions from various quarters, particularly on the Internet.
I suppose that the delay could be related to the outcry: in fact, it seems likely. But the delay doesn’t in any way suggest to me that we’ve heard the last of this. The usual government strategy when some desired legislation receives a negative response is to back off, then bury the legislation in some other, far more complex and confusing bill that gets introduced later under a completely different title. “Desired” in this case means that any legislation where millions of dollars in lobbyist ‘donations’ are at stake. And to be clear, this same strategy is used regardless of party affiliation, and on both sides of the border.
Until I see a clear statement from the government saying “Whoa, that was a stupid bill, we’ll scrap that and make darn sure we respect the fair use rights of our citizens before we even think of changing the law again”, I’ll assume that the ball is still in play. The bill will be back with different words but the same intent: to strip Canadians of the right to watch or listen to the videos and music we pay for on our devices of choice…without purchasing the same damn thing over and over again.
If you want to learn more about the bill, Canadian Copyright, or what you can do to make yourself heard, check out Michael Geist’s blog.