Canadian Copyright Group: Format Conversion and Time Shifting Should Be Illegal

[admin]

Chances are, you've converted a legally purchased DVD to another format, converted a music CD to MP3, and have time shifted a TV program for later viewing, either on your trusty old VCR or on your brand new DVR/TiVo. However, Canada's Access Copyright group has made it clear that all of this is totally unacceptable, even if everyone's doing.

There have been other groups, like the CRTC, Canada's telecom regulators, that have called for legalizing format, time shifting and private backup copies, by adding these to exceptions to changes to the copyright laws now proposed by the Canadian government. But while Access Copyright agrees that these acts have become "common public practices", they also say that "good public policy should not be dictated by legalizing" these practices.

While Access Copyright's submission mainly deals with print copyright, for which they have self interests at stake, their position can be equally applied to the forum of audio, visual entertainment, meaning that even a recording TV shows to your VCR for later viewing and then immediately removing the copy, is still illegal in the eyes of Access Copyright. And if you want to make a iPod copy of your DVD movie, then you better pay for the right to do so.

Copyright has always been about protecting creativity while balancing the needs of the public to be able to access said works freely (free as in freedom, not as in "no cost"). It has never been about protecting the pockets of studios, publishers and groups like Access Copyright. It seems that with the "digital panic" that the content owners are current experiencing, and with legislators buying the "sky is falling" stories told to them by the copyright lobby, the greater purpose of copyright has been lost. Hopefully not forever.

More:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...g-never-ok.ars

[drfsupercenter]

Note to self: never move to Canada.

Then of course, would someone like me who's been ripping CDs and DVDs for years care if it's illegal or not? If I buy something, I'm gonna do whatever I want, whenever I want to, and no government is going to tell me otherwise...
(And I think the issue is just uploading stuff - as long as you're not leaking movies or torrenting some hugely expensive software the government probably won't even know about it.)

[Derree]

well I am in Canada (And love it lol) and this is the first that I have heard of it, nor will I stop using my pvr anytime soon...

[soup]

Originally Posted by Derree

well I am in Canada (And love it lol) and this is the first that I have heard of it, nor will I stop using my pvr anytime soon...

Yeah! Power to the people.

[rago88]

The Millions upon millions of dollars that the MPAA has spent on lawyering being it trying to stop copying or bittorent or whatever could have gone to copyright holders and eveyone would have been happy.

They really don't care about artist rights as much as they do not want anyone to have a piece of the action.
so embrace it.

make bittorent fees say, 15.00 a month for all you can eat. [music, movies, software then distribute money to artists and designers.
Ad a few cents to blank dvd's for copy fees.
The record association should have learned from Napster that the technology although they stunted it at the time was never going to go away.

[drfsupercenter]

They really don't care about artist rights as much as they do not want anyone to have a piece of the action.
so embrace it.

THIS

Paying for BitTorrent would suck, though, it defeats the purpose completely LOL
I mean, even things such as Linux distributions use BitTorrent to distribute their disc images because so many people use it. And that's perfectly legal.

But yes, I think they should stop paying companies to spy on users and instead pay the companies to stop whining.