All it takes is two photographs. At first glance, which group do you think knows what it’s talking about?
Gregg, Hébert (back in the "good" haircut days), Pastor Mansbridge, Coyne, and occasional grandiloquent guest, Popeye Rex.
Fascist Twinkie, Autocrat Twinkie, Reactionary Twinkie, and Parochial Twinkie.
I’ll say this for the Yanks, they give good smile.
I enjoy a good crisis. Miners trapped underground? Count me in. Miners rescued in good shape and ahead of schedule? Snooze.
The current rumbling from Under the Border foreshadows a doozy of a crisis. The mainstream media have only just begun to cover this US foreclosure fracas, but it’s been the topic du jour for plusieurs jours now amongst the lesser affiliates of the financial cognoscenti.
There are more explanations of this foreclosure fuss than you can shake a rolled-up title deed at. I’ll add to the heap with the simplest — and quite possibly misleading — summary I can muster:
So you see the problem.
There’s also the trifling matter that the banks — and really, there are more institutions involved, but I can spell “bank” — may have to pay for those mortgage-backed securities they sold in step #2 because of some small print that says they can’t lose more than 0.01% of the paperwork for any one security. Apparently, the banks may have lost a lot more than that. And they really can’t go looking for the lost paperwork because the tax-friendly terms of the mortgage-backed securities means that they’d fork over a hefty tax penalty if they did. The price tag is still being worked out, but the entire market is a colon-clenching 2.6 trillion dollars.
Then come the lawyers.
If you want a much more thorough, and yet easy to grasp, telling of the sordid tale of the foreclosure follies, I encourage you to read this five-part series.
Git that popcorn a-poppin’, this’uns gonna be goooood.
Bill C-32, the Copyright Modernization Act, was introduced by the Conservative government in parliament on June 2nd. C-32 is the Tory’s third attempt at copyright reform after both C-60 and C-61 failed to reach a vote before dissolution.
With the exception of one deal-breaking provision, C-32 is a reasonable update to Canada’s copyright law, which was last changed when “internet” meant a basketball swish shot. The bill makes a number of progressive changes:
The bill prohibits any copying if the source material is protected by a digital lock, even if such copying is allowed by the fair dealing exceptions.
“So?” you say, “Why would that bother me?” Well, if the digital lock provisions of C-32 are passed into law:
This is an incomplete list of all of the things you should be able to do but can’t because of C-32′s digital lock provisions. Just how ridiculous is it to deny a person’s right to control his or her own possessions, when doing so affects no one else and doesn’t rob anyone of their due income?
Take, for instance, a law prohibiting the opening of locked toasters. You might argue that the contents of toasters are far too valuable to trust citizens to not abuse. They might copy the plans, or refashion the parts into a spring-loaded slingshot that could put somebody’s eye out. All kinds of mischief! Therefore, opening toasters must be made illegal. Never mind that you paid for it and the thing is sitting in your kitchen, belching smoke. It’s special.
Magic seals are made to be broken by Ivor Tossell
If the restrictions named above seem far fetched or hypothetical, consider the all-too-real consequences of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which instituted similar digital lock protection rules:
It will surprise none of you to hear that the media industry is forceful supporters of C-32′s digital lock protections, having already gone so far as concocting a phony campaign in support of the bill. It may surprise you that the truly-Canadian recording and film associations are not in favour of the bill, but for different reasons, including expansion of a toll on blank CDs that you have been paying for years.
Fortunately, awareness of the digital lock absurdity is growing:
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably disturbed by this digital lock protection business. Your next step is to learn more about Bill C-32 and its objectionable section by following the blog of Dr. Michael Geist, Canada’s chief independent follower of the intellectual property scene. Geist has written a comprehensive summary of the consequences of the digital lock anti-circumvention rules (PDF).
Then, keep up to date by subscribing to Speak Out On Copyright. If you haven’t given up on Facebook yet, join the Fair Copyright for Canada group. You may also want to support Online Rights Canada by donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
After that, it’s time to get out the ol’ pen and paper. While you can use the online service of the Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights site to send e-mail and a printed letter to all of the involved members of parliament, you’ll make more of an impact with a personal letter written by hand.
Writing the PM and his ministers probably won’t convince them that they were wrong about the bill all along, but might at least make them feel bad (I believe that even human-like-object Stephen Harper has a heart). You’ll at least get a more personal response by writing Yukon’s MP, Larry Bagnell. I’ve already traded a couple of e-mail messages with him (bagnell5@parl.gc.ca), and you can write him for free at this address:
The Honourable Larry Bagnell
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A6
You can find the address for your own member of parliament here, although all you really have to do is change the name on the first line, above.
Sadly, the media and business lobbies — chummy pals of the Conservatives and Liberals both — are lined up solidly behind the unaltered language of Bill C-32, so there is a real danger that it will pass as written.
If it does, I know that I will consciously break the law and continue to use my copyrighted possessions in ways that I consider to be non-infringing. You hear that, M Division? I also know that I won’t be alone, and that unenforceable laws drawing widespread popular dissent won’t attract much interest from the police.
However, just as for the unintended consequences of the Yanks’ DMCA, the law will punish innovative companies with small legal budgets, ultimately reducing our options and increasing the prices we’re charged. We must not let that happen. You know what to do.
Apparently the C-32 committee won’t convene until this fall, so there’s lots of time to send lots of letters. Get Crackin’.
On election day, never, ever, wear anything but a solid-colour tie.
From left: Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
Still, I’d take any one of them over Harper.
This morning I happened upon a mention of Gwynne Dyer‘s 1983 NFB documentary, Anybody’s Son Will Do. In one succinct hour, it explains the motivation behind military basic training, using intimate footage from the U.S. Marine Corps’ notorious Paris Island program.
The full documentary is available in piecemeal YouTube-sized portions: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6.
The article that first led me to the film seemed convinced that the US military was in some way suppressing the documentary, but I remember viewing it a couple of decades ago, so I guess the suppression didn’t reach north of the 49th parallel. Not to mention that the US tends to ignore — rather than suppress — any cultural artefact created beyond the borders of the Lower 48.
One interesting tidbit, which has the full faith and credit of the intertubes behind it, is that Dyer’s documentary influenced Stanley Kubrick‘s Full Metal Jacket, or at least up until Pyle shoots the Gunny.
Like all of Dyer’s work — my favourite military and geopolitical writer — the film is a matter-of-fact account of what has to be done to young men to make them soldiers. Regardless of what the article contends, it’s not an anti-war piece. Just hang-dog Dyer tellin’ it like it is.
Words fail me: http://co2isgreen.org/
I first read about it here (Guardian) and here (Mother Jones) and here (Washington Post).
“Higher CO2 levels than we have today would help the earth’s ecosystems and would support more plant and animal life.”
“More CO2 results in a greener Earth.”
OMFG. We’re doomed.
According to their finally-released platform, the Tories intend to reintroduce the Canadian DMCA bill formerly known as C-61 (it would get a new number in the new parliament). I’m not inclined to link to the Conservatives’ website for the details, and in any case conservative.ca seems to be down at the moment. I’ve written before about this bill and its punitive intentions.
As usual, Michael Geist has the complete story, and also the credit for my posting’s title.
Don’t want a DMCA north of 60° (or 49° for that matter)? Then keep Daryl P. home after the 14th, and away from his pal Stephen in Ottawa. Oh, there’s lots of reasons to shove the Conservatives over to the left of the Speaker, but this seems as good a one as any.
Continuing from my previous circumlocutory post, here is a simple list of the things that will be denied us by Bill C-61 should it gain Royal Assent:
This list is taken — dare I say, copied — from a very readable and concise series of talking points to defeat Bill C-61 by Brendon Wilson.
Michael Geist is also writing about common family activities that will become illegal under Bill C-61 in a week-long series.
The Globe also featured an interview about the bill with University of Ottawa professor, Jeremy deBeer, which illustrates just how few copyright-related activities that Canadians take for granted will still be allowed should the bill pass.
Here are just three things we all can do to protest Bill C-61. I worry that 30 minutes with Larry might render me unconcious, but Meat Loaf told me — in person (Kingston, 1987) — that two out of three ain’t bad.
That’s a title guaranteed to ward off non-afficionados of cultish 80s fantasy flics. But if you’re of that camp and still think you might be interested in the story of an immortal Egyptian-born Spanish-surnamed katana-weilding Shcottish-actored character training an immortal Scottish-born French-actored character during the late Middle Ages in preparation for a modern-day New York knife fight — all to the tune of Freddie Mercury — then I suggest you check out Connor MacLeod of the clan MacLeod.
‘Tis true though; the tape is ruined. I’m now afraid to feed anything into that flashing-LED-encrusted maw. High time to convert my VHS collection to DVD. Ideally, there’s a service somewhere that can manage a high-quality transfer for me. Otherwise I’ll have to link together some recording hardware of my own invention: a chain that would necessarily start with the aforementioned tape-munching VCR.
But some of the tapes have old versions of the Macrovision copy-protection scheme. From what I understand, it’s not all that hard to defeat when transferring to digital format via an open-source encoder. To my not-a-lawyer mind, I am also completely within my rights under Section 80 of the Copyright Act (C-42) to format-shift copyrighted works for private use.
The situation changes should Bill C-61 pass. I believe I still would be permitted* to make private copies under the proposed legislation, but any attempt to break a copy-protection scheme, or the mere possession of tools that permit such circumvention, would constitute a criminal offence. It’s these anti-DRM “digital lock” provisions that I find most objectionable in C-61 and the American DMCA.
It’s as if Ford installed a specially-shaped port at the end of the fuel tank’s fill spout, restricting you to refueling only at Ford-branded filling stations. Yanking out the port to fill elsewhere puts you in jeopardy of arrest and the seizure of your vehicle. How much do you think Ford would charge per litre if that was the law?
I must admit that I don’t know as much about C-61 as I should, even though I’ve been following its stuttered introduction since late last year. My general impression — largely courtesy of University of Ottawa’s Michael Geist — is that C-61 favours the large copyright holders and industry organizations over the consumer, especially the type of consumer that likes to fiddle and experiment with the electronic innards of household products.
I’ve already sent Larry a couple of letters imploring him to vote against the bill. Try it yourself, and remember that there’s no postage required to mail anyone in parliament:
The Hon. Larry Bagnell
House of Commons
446-S, Centre Block
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
bagnell@parl.gc.ca
1-866-293-6565
After that, why not try out the same for the Industry Minister, the Heritage Minister, and the Prime Minister as well, while you’re at it? Given sufficient uproar, there’s a good chance the bill will die at the end of the current sitting.
Otherwise, the law will mandate that “There can be only One” copy of my mangled tape.
It appears that section 29.21 of the bill doesn’t restrict me from making a personal copy of a videocassette onto DVD. But I sure as heck couldn’t make a copy of a DVD to another DVD, or even onto a videocassette. The wording seems to expressly omit making any fair dealing copies from a source medium that is digital in nature — and therefore likely infected with DRM — such as CDs, DVDs, or computer files.
As I write this, one Euro will buy you 1.47 US Dollars. The Loonie, meanwhile, is kissing a buck-ten US. Oil and gold are up too. China is renooberating some $1.43 trillion in foreign reserves, and that is very bad news for the greenback.
Gen-X Canadian that I am, experience inclines me to assume that the instability in the US Dollar is a mere fluctuation, a correction, a blip, and that the US and its currency will recover sooner than later. We will again look southward — or westward, for those of us above 60° — to our traditional economic leader and benefactor.
But what if this is instead the decline leading to the fall of the American Empire? What if America has — to borrow the Fonz-inspired phrase, meaning a radical change in plot preceding ultimate demise — jumped the shark?
That’s quite a charge, and not one that I’m wholly capable of defending. I have no relevant credentials to offer other than an unhealthy interest in US politics and economics: dollars to doughnuts I can name more US senators and congressmen than members of parliament. I’m not proud, I’m just sayin’ is all.
It’s simply the case that, ever since the appointment of George W. Bush, the United States has become so darned entertaining. We rightly think of Americans as our neighbours, but they’ve become our wacky sit-com neighbours: the Mertzes, Howard Borden, the Ropers, Rhoda Morgenstern, or even Lenny & Squiggy. What will they do next?
Tuning in each week reveals ever-stranger plot twists. The United States, the most potent political, social, and military entity ever devised, is now…
That’s the list I was able to jot on a Wednesday morning. Much longer litanies of administration-specific wrongdoings are available.
Is that enough to irrevocably tip the scale away from America’s favour? I’m beginning to believe that it is. China or Europe or India will pick up the torch. The US won’t give up its pride of place without a serious bout of wrasslin’ though; it will be a very rough ride for us Canucks.
America will continue to be morbidly entertaining — the best episodes always appear just before the series is cancelled.