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:

• make backups of our DVDs,
• move our media to other devices,
• use our media in perpetuity,
• exercise our rights to fair dealing,
• re-mix DRM-ed public domain material,
• unlock our phones,
• use all of our phones’ features, and
• remove DRM software.

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.

*Update, June 18th

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…

• in debt to the tune of $9 trillion;
• importing $60 billion more than it exports each month;
• foreclosing 45% more houses than last year;
• writing down billions in subprime loan losses;
• unable to medically insure 14% of its people;
• eavesdropping on its citizen’s telephone chats;
• legitimizing known methods of torture;
• burning, flooding, and drying-up;
• stalemated between an unpopular president and an even less popular legislature;
• arresting without the right to trial;
• mandating pre-approved travel for foreigners and citizens alike;
• spending $10 billion annually to defend against imagined North Korean missiles;
• relying upon a tenuous Pakistan for control of Afghanistan;
• hiring mercenaries to supplement a deflating infantry;
• threatening to attack yet another sovereign nation “just in case”; and
• forecast to spend $2 trillion and many thousands dead on a needless war that cannot be won, lost, or ended.

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.

The following skit brilliantly explains the whole subprime brouhaha. It’s performed by a British comedy duo known as The Long Johns, Messrs Bird and Fortune.

The second explanation to which the title refers is that, were North Americans able to understand and appreciate comedy this sophisticated, there probably never would’ve been a subprime crisis in the first place.

I funded most of my university career by hawking musical instruments, surfing my many credit cards (i.e., paying one with another), and accumulating an impressive student loan. I do remember the leaden weight of that debt, and I recognized it in Maxed Out (found via Best Free Documentaries). While I like to believe we thrifty Canadians won’t be as affected as the film’s American victims by ridiculous credit enticements, I don’t see any minor cultural distinctions interfering in the pursuit of profit.

(You may get a better viewing experience by clicking the Google Video button and then “Go to Google Video”. I also had to constantly jiggle the progress slider to get the video to play for more than five minutes at a stretch. Why must Internet video be so difficult?)