grahamwilliams dot ca

It’s a simple equation really: I own hundreds of movies and games, thousands of books, and an uncountable number of CDs. I am not something rare in Canada, I am common: I am a media consumer. Bill C-32 aims to punish me for paying money to the artists I love.

If Bill C-32 passes I will no longer consumer as much media. My money is discretionary and I can focus it elsewhere. In addition to consuming this media, I rock climb, I take photographs, and I write. Shifting proportionality on what I do isn’t hard.

MP James Moore: stay out of my living room. Yes, we need to protect artists, myself included, but what I do with something after I’ve bought it is my business and NOT YOURS.

Here’s the script I wrote out for myself if you’d prefer to read it.

This is a DVD disc. You might recognize it – or even hundreds of it’s brothers behind me. It’s a DVD disc that has been pressed with the information needed to playback a DVD movie; in this case, the greatest archeologist-based action movie of all time: Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I own this disc. I bought it along with the two other Indiana Jones movie discs as part of a trilogy of discs.

You might notice that I said movie discs and not the movies themselves, because I don’t really own Raiders of the Lost Ark; I own a license to watch it from this disc.

Well, that’s what MP James Moore and other anti-consumer activists want you to believe. Now I’m going to take this movie disc and I’m going to do something illegal. I’m going to put it in my computer and make a copy.

You might wonder why I would do that. There are lots of reasons!

First, I’ve got a DLNA compatible home network. That means I can stream my digital files to my TV. I’ve already paid for the digital content on these discs, so ripping them to stream makes sense. If I make a copy and that gets damaged I still have my original. And really, it doesn’t matter why I want a copy: I should have the right to make one for my own personal use.

There’s a dangerous bill that’s being tabled for parliament. It’s called Bill C-32. It’s meant to update our copyright laws, which are quite out of date.

The bill contains tons of great new copyright rules, letting people place and timeshift things, and allowing the use of copyrighted material for educational, critical, and satirical purposes. Those parts aren’t perfect, but they can be hammered out on the floor.

The problem with C-32 is what we call the digital locks provision. It says that all of the other rights given to you by Bill C-32 can be taken away by simply putting a digital lock on the file. So what’s the point of giving us the rights in the first place? Almost every piece of digital media out there right now has a digital lock… so if we can’t break those locks, we can’t time or place shift anything.

This DVD has a digital lock. The digital lock is called CSS. In order to make a copy I need to break that digital lock. If you’ve ever made a copy of a DVD or a protected CD, under Bill C-32 you could be liable for a fine of up to $5000. If I made a copy of every DVD that I own for my personal use I could be on the hook for $3-million dollars. Three million dollars for something I’ve paid for the rights to use.

Bill C-32 isn’t totally broken, but the digital locks provision has to go. If Canadian’s don’t control their media they will be at the mercy of a small minority of publishers. If I bought it no one else should control what I do with it, and as long as I’m not selling it or costing them a sale they should stay out of my business. Write a paper letter to your MP and send it to them in Ottawa, you don’t even need a stamp.

Stand up for your rights while you still have them. Don’t let the media industry run this country the same way they’re running the US.