This is about the new copyright law they want to introduce in canada. most of you know about it but in order to get some hope we need to write our local MP's. the link given helps us do that it will help u find your MP create the letter and email it off. IF YOU CARE ABOUT THIS SUBJECT PLEASE DO IT IT TAKES LESS THAN A MINUTE.  please tell a friend

http://www.onlinerights.ca/get_active/copyright_reform_action/

Anyone what to summarize what this Bill is trying to imppose?

here borrowed from many articles i found.

The Canadian equivalent of the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) will be announced in Parliament in January. It was originally slated to be tabled this week, but has been postponed after Industry Minister Jim Prentice received thousands of letters, emails and calls from people concerned that there has been absolutely no public consultation. I was discussing the situation with Retro Thing editor Bohus Blahut this morning (he's American, I'm Canadian), and he eloquently asked, "Do you think the idea of a record button is going to become Retro?"

Copyright for Canadians reports, "Unfortunately, all reports indicate that this law will not reflect Canadian interests and will tip the balance inherent in copyright irrevocably towards the interests of copyright owners at the expense of Canadian consumers, creators, educators, students, and innovators.

The Government of Canada has been under pressure from the American government and from big foreign copyright interests to adopt extreme copyright laws similar to the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).  When faced with a choice, Canada�s Conservative government chose to put Canada�s interests after American and foreign business interests.  Worse, reports indicate that the Government intends to fast track the bill."

If you're Canadian, please take the time to write to your Member of Parliament and Industry Minister Jim Prentice to keep the pressure on. You don't even need a stamp:

Mr. Jim Prentice
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

It's not too late to make a difference to ensure that you have the legal right to transfer your record collection to your iPod, timeshift a television show, or photocopy a couple of pages from a book for research use.

Read Dr. Michael Geist's commentary on the recent delay
Get the latest information at Copyright for Canadians

What are Copyright Reform and Bill C-60?
Bill C-60 was the government's last attempt to significantly change Canadian copyright law -- a.k.a. "copyright reform" -- and it would have had broad implications for Canadian society. The government suggested that Canadians needed Bill C-60 to "modernize" Canadian copyright law to reflect the realities of digital technology like the Internet. In truth, the current Copyright Act has served Canadian content industries very well. If anything, Parliament should be addressing copyright's failure to serve the needs and interests of ordinary Canadians. In the end, Bill C-60 would have created a host of new rights for copyright holders and eliminates corresponding rights that Canadian users of copyrighted material enjoy today. Bill C-60 expired when the Liberal government collapsed in 2005, but its principles will return under a different bill number in 2006.

ORC is focused on three aspects of copyright reform as expressed in Bill C-60:

Fixing the bad stuff
In the spirit of promoting copyright law for Canadians, ORC has identified several sections of Bill C-60 that could use a rewrite in the next Parliament:

Section 29: Access to Information, Freedom from Censorship, and Privacy
That sounds like a tall order, but those issues are all tied up in how Bill C-60 deals with liability for "intermediaries" like Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and search tools. Copyright holders often target these entities when prosecuting infringement claims, and laws that are unclear or provide inadequate protection can turn intermediaries into the weak link for consumer rights. Click for more.

Section 18: Education and the Internet
Bill C-60 contained well-intentioned clauses about distance learning and digital interlibrary loan, but they were practically unworkable. By introducing substantial - and in some cases silly - administrative burdens, the law would have actually make it harder to take advantage of digital technology in the classroom. Canada needs stronger exceptions for schools and libraries to fully harness the educational power of the Internet. Click for more.

Section 21: Who Owns Your Family Photos?
Bill C-60 purported to "harmonize" photographers' rights with those of other authors under the Copyright Act. In reality, Bill C-60 would have stripped Canadians of their copyright in commissioned photographs and portraits. Canadian copyright law has historically protected consumers by giving them copyright in commissioned photographs, such as wedding photos and baby pictures. Bill C-60 would have changed those rules to the detriment of consumers. Click for more.

Protecting the good stuff
Bill C-60 sprang partly from the need to implement Canada's international treaty obligations, and it proposed to do so in a comparatively humane way. In the United States, for example, entertainment companies succeeded in turning those same treaties into a law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) - an unambiguous disaster for American citizens. But American entertainment companies like it, and they're lobbying the Canadian government to make our copyright reform legislation more like the DMCA. Specifically, they want to make it illegal to circumvent "technical protection measures" on copyrighted material for any reason, and to implement a regime that forces Internet service providers (ISPs) to censor their subscribers based merely on allegations of copyright infringement. That's not the law in Canada today, and it wouldn't be the law if C-60 had passed. Canada needs its own DMCA like it needs an outbreak of mad cow disease, and that's why we're fighting attempts to expand Canadian copyright reform in this direction.

Adding something for average Canadians (i.e. those of us who don't own CD factories)
Canadian governments exhibit a predictable pattern of behaviour in copyright revision: the government of the day continuously promises attention to user issues in the "next round" of revision, only to ignore those issues in favour of granting more, stronger and longer rights to copyright holders. Bill C-60 continued this pattern. What was Bill C-60 missing? Click here for a large and growing list of user issues that were notably absent in Bill C-60.

From http://www.michaelgeist.ca/

No Canadian DMCA This Year

The roller coaster that is the Canadian DMCA has taken another turn.  Sometime between yesterday afternoon and this morning, the government decided to hold off.  At 10:00 am this morning, the introduction of new government bills came and went without a new copyright bill.  The Industry Minister's press secretary has advised journalists that the bill will not be introduced today or tomorrow.  Since the House of Commons will break at the end of the week, the Canadian DMCA will not be introduced until at least late January.

Given this change of events, I reiterate my comment from earlier this week - this is Prentice's moment. He has an opportunity to brush aside the momentary embarrassment of the delays and instead work toward a genuine copyright balance by reaching out to all Canadians.  As astonishing number of people have voiced their concern over the past two weeks and the government seems to have listened. Now it must act by openly consulting and engaging with a country that genuinely cares about copyright.


A really good Canadian blog site on the technical laws with an emphasis on copyright and fair use.

Introducing the Bill in Parliament doesn't mean a thing. It will still take a long time for it to work its way through Committee and through subsequent readings. Even if it did make its way to the Senate, it would likely look very different from what it says at 1st reading. I predict an election before any of that happens. There is certainly no need to panic.

so no need to panic till late January 2008. so in the meantime it doesn't hurt to to write your mp now it is why we put them there. hopefully it will be modified for more balance.

Yes, based on the info we've been getting, it looks like a Spring election is coming, maybe, just maybe we can get back to business with a Canadian Liberal majority government, get our troops home, and leave this bought of pro-American Reformism behind (oops did I just make a political statement on MAACA - oh God where's my flame suit...where...where!).

By the way, Canadian authors and artists are currently better protected than their American counterparts (our laws frown on "work to hire" and assume that copyright always remains with the original author unless they are an employee of a company), and Canadian schools and libraries have access to materials as a matter of course that have been very commercialized South of the border (from what I understand).