It occurs to me that if egregiously large early termination fees are in place to recover costs for expensive hardware, why is it that I can’t just give the hardware back?
Danielle Laboissier Parr published an article in the Calgary Herald on June 19th, 2010 that can’t be called news. It has more in common with a paid political advertisement than it does with anything factual. The article is titled “Why gamers should love copyright bill”.
Parr begins by stating a fact: that Bill C-32 is flawed. She then turns to the argument that strong copyright with strengthen the videogame industry in Canada both for creators and consumers, and that (and I quote directly here) “the absence of protection of intellectual property means operating on a pirate island”.
She then goes on to say that creative sectors need assurances that they can take risks and that we need a legal framework to support this new economy. If I can take a moment to translate that, what she has just said is that these businesses want legal protection for their product from the government, and they want protection for their old business models which they keep trying to shoe-horn into a new economic reality.
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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.
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James Moore tweeted that several of his co-workers had joined the iPad nation. I asked him how they were going to feel when they found out he wouldn’t let them rip DVDs they own to watch on their iPad. His response?
Buy DVDs & bluerays (sic) that offer a digital copy or use iTunes. If u don’t like that, don’t buy an iPac. Choices are all around!
What a snide son-of-a-b… Ahem. Let’s be clear: this is a non-solution. I have $6000 in DVDs already, many of which were released before the digital download revolution. What can I do about those? James is silent on his solution there. Why can’t I watch content I own? Well, I should clearly use the state-sponsored Apple solution.
What an embarrassing barrel of nonsense! It wasn’t even worth responding that the technology is called “Blu-ray” not “blueray”, but to be told that I flat-out shouldn’t buy a device because of a digital lock? Preposterous. You should be embarrassed, Mr. Minister.
