This is an issue of fear. Not the fear of the consumer losing fair use of lawfully purchased digital media but rather the fear of copyright holders losing revenue. The fears of the copyright holders and those with vested interests are listened to keenly by governing bodies over those citizens who elected the officials of said governing bodies. This is because of the significant revenues the copyright holds generate and possibly donate in the form of legal bribes AKA campaign contributions. This also says nothing about the significant amounts of money spent in the private sector on lobbyist that speak directly to elected officials.

We the citizens of such nations are being bought and sold on a regular bases. it’s the system that is broken because politicians are indebted to private sector contributors before they are even elected and its their interests that they uphold not ours. Power has shifted away from the voting poles back to wherever the money flows in some sort of backward aristocracy.

Basically, it’s the inmates that are running the asylum here folks and it’s the sane people like us that are getting screwed.

I’m so disgusted with the whole thing that I’m this close to reading a book! I’m just kidding about that book thing because I would never read a book,…OK,….OK,….I’m kidding again seriously I read books all the time and may have to do so much, much, much more often with the way things are going.

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Q6600 | Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R | Corsair XMS2 DDR2 2x1GB + OCZ DDR2 2x512MB | eVGA 8800GT | 2x 650GB HDD | LG GGW-H20L | 2x AVerTV Combo PCIe | Coolermaster 650 Extreme SLI PSU | XBox 360 | XBox 360 HD DVD Drive | Vista Home Premium | WHS | Hauppauge HD PVR

This bill is ridiculous.  It's completely unenforcable.  The real tragedy is the amount of time and paper being wasted on trying to push it.

I spent 30 mins calling the police to report a suspicious dump of stuff on the lawn outside my building yesterday (Apparently some crooks robbed a place and then dumped all the hot stuff on the lawn).  When they did answer, all they said was "Clean it up".  The next day, after the owners were contacted, by my co-worker and myself I might add, they filed a report with the police and the next thing we know, the dumb gumshoes go, "Oh, well we better fingerprint it."

Yeah... after 6 sets of hands have already handled it?

I don't live in backwater hamlet either, this is our "serving and protecting" enforcement in a major city.  I'm not too worried that they could actually handle a serious copyright theft (which I don't do) much less commit resources to investigate us MediaCenter recorders (Which I do do) for breaking some obscure asnine law.

Indeed,…

It may not be enforceable now but what they are doing today may be more about setting up a precedence in order to enforce it later on down the road.

For example, if you want to shoot something and you don’t want to be arrested for possession of an illegal weapon you make sure your location is one where firearms are legal and that all your paperwork is correct. In other words you get all your ducks in a row first.

Insidious means to investigate, gather information and implicate offenders can and likely will come later. First comes the law then comes the enforcement (abuse, exaggeration and stretching of said law).

Its called getting a foothold.

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Q6600 | Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R | Corsair XMS2 DDR2 2x1GB + OCZ DDR2 2x512MB | eVGA 8800GT | 2x 650GB HDD | LG GGW-H20L | 2x AVerTV Combo PCIe | Coolermaster 650 Extreme SLI PSU | XBox 360 | XBox 360 HD DVD Drive | Vista Home Premium | WHS | Hauppauge HD PVR

It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant we are when it comes to how to control the system.  We blame politicians, we blame large corporations, but we never blame ourselves.  Who is to blame in this mess?  Look in the mirror.  Don't believe me?  Let me show you just how it goes....

It's not a secret that politicians listen to large corporate interests.  There's a good reason for it.  It allows them to get elected.  It gives them the money they need to create a campaign of lies to the citizen.  They create a show, much like Hollywood would create a show and you buy into it.  Why?  Because you LOVE to be entertained.  Just go vote for the least established party, just for the hell of it.  Shake up the system.  Can't do that?  Read on.

Politicians pass laws that support the interests of large corporations.  Large corporations operate on one simple principal.  Consumer spending.  To keep from being too broad I will narrow it to the agencies we are most concerned about here, the RIAA, the MPAA, and their associated counterparts in other countries.  These organizations are comprised of various industry players who have an interest in controlling your brain.  They, themselves, do not DO anything other than look for ways to control you, the market, and make money.  They are organizations who consume the talents of individuals and then push that product into your life.  The problem?  You let them.

No one here needs to have the latest music sensation on CD, no one here needs to have the latest DVD release.  But we think we do.  So we'll happily by the music and movies, and watch the television they provide us and all the while we give them the money they need to control your life even more.  MediaCenter in and of itself is merely a new outlet by which the entertainment industry seeks to control you.  You want to change the way large corporations respond to you?  Stop giving them money.  Money is the ONLY thing that drives them.  They have a responsibility to their shareholders to earn profit and pay dividends.  Do you own stock in an RIAA company?  I bet you do.  Your mutual funds most likely comprise stocks of various industry players.

We, as a society, are unable to stop consuming the crap that gets shoved down our throats.  We are unwilling to take the ownership required.  It's easier to say, I'm just one person and if I stop giving them money I only hurt myself because my neighbor will still consume.  You betcha and don't you think these organizations know it?  The "people" are powerful.  In fact they are the most powerful living force on this planet.  The problem is that they are all individuals with different goals and different needs and easy as hell to break apart.  Even if you know you'll have to suffer, should you not make it your mission, assuming you truly believe your rights are being infringed upon, to suffer?  Should you not stop watching the product of the organizations that are working to control you and spend that time showing others the folly of their ways?

Or would you rather just sit back, complain a little, and watch as your rights are taken away from you because you did nothing.  It's not going to stop.

Yes, there's that lovely alternative, you could steal it.  Now, ask yourself, if you create a culture of theft don't you think it makes it that much easier to pass laws that will punish those who steal?  You begin to fulfill the prophecy the MPAA and RIAA are already whispering in the ears of politicians.  "These people are STEALING from us!  We can't make money!  You need to act!"

Who's to blame?  Look in the mirror.  If you still don't believe it, they've won.

Danno100:

...  Makes no sense, it's like saying selling cigarettes is legal and then making it illegal to smoke them... 

Kind of like medicinal marijuana in Canada which is the opposite - it is legal to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes but illegal to buy or grow.

LTS!:

We are unwilling to take the ownership required.  It's easier to say, I'm just one person and if I stop giving them money I only hurt myself because my neighbor will still consume.  You betcha and don't you think these organizations know it?  The "people" are powerful.  In fact they are the most powerful living force on this planet.  The problem is that they are all individuals with different goals and different needs and easy as hell to break apart.  Even if you know you'll have to suffer, should you not make it your mission, assuming you truly believe your rights are being infringed upon, to suffer?

Couldn't agree more.  I blame the people as well.  Same thing with the 1994 baseball strike.  70% blamed the players, 29% blamed the owners, and 1% blamed the fans.  IT WAS THE FANS' FAULT!  DUH!!!  I haven't paid to see a baseball game in years and I have no plans to start any time soon.



You will probably find this article about Henry David Thoreau interesting:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy86.html

Ahh Thoreau...

I studied him quite a bit in during my college days.  He has some entertaining points but he fails to find solutions.  It's easy for someone to say that something is wrong.  It's easy to say "don't obey".  It's near impossible to do.  His contentions are that should he not want to be part of the state, the state should want nothing from him.  It's a nice theory, but it applies to a very small niche of people, even less these days.

Civil disobedience is a great thing.  If you are willing to pay the consequences.  However, it's far more effective to find the source of the problem and eradicate it.  In this case, if society stops funding the entertainment industry, the industry will have no choice but to collapse or reform.  Assuming that artists, who are the talent behind this, still want to make money they will adopt a system that generates more revenue and the sides will negotiate until a balance is achieved. 

Anyway, it's probably far outside the scope of this particular issue, other than to say, stop funding the machine and the machine you'll be free of it.  Which I suppose is somewhat as Thoreau intentions...

Background from a very informed and learned source at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3040/308/  Geist is probably the global expert on C-61.    Pissed off?  Join an action group - see http://www.faircopyrightforcanada.ca/

IMO the industry is reaching for more than they  expect to get, anticipating a widdling down of the legislation as it goes through a long review process.    As many have pointed out,  enforcement of much of this will be impossible.   But C-61 does put into place a regulatory framework for practices like broadcast flags that will be enforceable with very little expense or trouble.  

BTW don't like C-61?  Have a boo at ACTA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement