A post of Copyright Bill C-61 has been floating around the web for some time now and to be honest, I’m not too sure if I find it useful to anybody. If  we look at what Jim Prentice had to say about it, the Industry Minister has stated you get this:

“Our government has committed to ensuring Canada’s copyright law is up-to-date, and today we are delivering by introducing this ‘made-in-Canada’ bill that balances the interests of Canadians who use digital technology and those who create content”

And, so… basically we can copy legally acquired music, television shows, ebooks, photographs and movies to digital devices like iPods and the like. Call me crazy, but that’s what I thought people were already doing for years, now. I know I have. Although, I have to admit that the “timeshifting” term is a bit silly. I mean, the whole idea is that you’re temporarily saving a recording of a program that you can view at a time that fits your schedule better. Jesus, we’ve been doing this exact same thing since the personal videocassette recorder and VHS tapes were introduced the public. Why is this even an issue now? just because it’s being saved sooner and to a hard drive instead of a spool of tape?

Actually, I imagine that it’s because you could rip these saved videos and throw them up on all sorts of legally questionable websites.

This bill does have an air of positivity and a lot of it is spun in such a way to make us feel that we’re gaining all manners of new freedoms that haven’t been addressed before, but at the end of the day, the gist I can derive out of the bill is to allow Canadians the ability to copy and save and store digital media in their own libraries at home and to move them to portable digital devices and players with enough freedom to match what would be the equivalent to a creative commons licence…  unless it has had some form of DRM on it when you bought it. And giving content producers and providers enough of a heads-up to put DRM on anything and everything.

This doesn’t give balance to anyone. It is turning this whole situation into the same stupid cat & mouse game we’ve already had to deal with, just with a newer rulebook. And none of the major rules had changed.

Over the past few months the government of Canada is holding a national forum to try and get a feel for what it’s citizens think of the current state of copyright in our country. Even though initially I thought this was a brilliant opportunity, our representatives seem to value the opinions of big business more than taxpayers with the trends swinging over to support implied draconian copyright law extensions and imposing a DMCA clone. 

Though, as citizens, there is something you can do about it if you don’t agree with that notion. (something tells me that most don’t)  The Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights or CCER have a letter template and submission form that you can use and even customize to write your opinion on the matter and it will email and snail-mail your letter to the Copyright Consultations administrator, Tony Clement, James Moore, Marc Garneau, Pablo Rodriguez, Charlie Angus and Stephen Harper. 

I wrote my own and sent it in. I would suggest that you do, as well.

So it seems that almost none of the required funds that Global Gaming Factory needs in order to buy The Pirate Bay have been raised thus far. This, to be honest, isn’t shaping up to be a great situation for file sharers and fans of The Pirate Bay. The way the TPB staff are going to be able to pay off their legal expenditures and fines, is obviously going to be way of selling the site. But the only interested buyer can’t get the money and the clock seems to be ticking. In an interview Wayne Rosso has been quoted to say: 

“We decided that we’re not going risk our reputation further. The more time we spent with Mr. Pandeya, the less confident we were. I don’t think there’s going to be any money raised with GGF’s current plans.”

And when confronted with the news, Pirate Bay founders have been said to arrogantly state that GGF have a week to raise the necessary funds or “the deal is off”. You see, to me that seems like a very slippery stance to take when you’re piled down with legal debts and the only real way out is to sell your site. I really don’t think they should be so picky about who is willing to buy that site as, if one were to ask me, isn’t actually worth much of anything. I mean, yeah it’s an internet icon, but it’s core foundation is based on distributing content that they don’t own the copyright to. In all actuality, it’s probably going to cost you out-of-pocket to run that site and anything you pay for it is going to be an enormous loss. That is, unless you have an idea that can take a user-base of media consumers that aren’t willing to pay for content under the guise of bootlegging and be able to draw an income from it behind the scenes, with the risk of 75 – 90 % of the users migrating away from your site on the sole fact that you are a new owner. If the kids over that The Pirate Bay were really serious about paying off their legal debt, they’d be sharpening their pencils every damn day for a buyer dumb enough to invest in a bombshell that’s past her prime. 

It’s not looking good, out there.