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Canadian Politician Claims That Ripping A CD To Your iPod Is Like Buying Socks & Stealing Shoes To Go With Them

Stupidity

from the these-people-don't-belong-in-gov't dept

Thu, May 17th 2012 03:36pm -

Via Michael Geist, we learn that Canadian Member of Parliament Dean Del Mastro, as part of the debate over copyright reform in Canada, is arguing fervently (and mockingly) against the right to format shift legally purchased music, say, from a CD to your digital music player. Specifically, he argues that format shifting is no different than buying one thing and then stealing a completely different product:

It’s like going to a clothing store and buying a pair of socks, and going back and saying ‘By the way, it wasn’t socks I needed, what I really wanted was shoes, so I’m just going to take these — I’m going to ‘format shift’ from socks to shoes — and I’m not going to pay anything because it was all for my feet.'”

I wouldn’t believe it myself if there wasn’t video:


It’s scary that people so clueless about the basics of what they’re discussing not only get elected, but then presume to make new laws based on their gleefully on-display cluelessness. No one is asking people to give up a totally unrelated product. They’re just saying that they quite frequently already do make use of a legally purchased good in a different context, and that should be legal. It’s like saying that they buy socks, and sometimes they like to make hand puppets out of them. In the ridiculous world of MP Dean Del Mastro, such a “format shift” would require a different purchase. People like that should have no business legislating.

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Comments on “Canadian Politician Claims That Ripping A CD To Your iPod Is Like Buying Socks & Stealing Shoes To Go With Them”

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153 Comments
harbingerofdoom (profile) says:

Re: Let me fix that for him

wouldnt even go that far,
its more like buying socks only to find that you may only keep them in ONE specific sock drawer, and no one else is allowed to wear those socks. just you….only you… never anyone else. and if you want to keep them in another drawer or let anyone else wear them? you have to buy another set of socks for that… except, again, only one person is allowed to wear that new pair of socks… but hey.. you can keep that new pair of socks on the floor at the foot of your bed…

of course, once you do that, you then again, cant keep those socks anywhere else other than your floor at the foot of your bed….

… and are we starting to see the ridiculous nature of what we are talking about here?

Robert (profile) says:

as per coding discussion with NYC Mayor

The first group to learn coding or protocols or even the difference between the digital world and real world, is the political group.

I don’t think Del Mastro should be involved in making decisions regarding copyrights. I can’t believe Peterborough voted for this guy.

I guess to deal buying a car and buying a house are the same thing, both can keep you dry when it rains (leaks aside) and therefor we should outlaw watering your lawn.

Jeff Rowberg (profile) says:

Re: as per coding discussion with NYC Mayor

I wonder if Moore’s Law implies that we may always have politicians so hopelessly behind the innovation curve that this kind of thing will keep happening. I certainly hope not.

Knowing that the current generation will one day be the political leaders ruling us is alarming in many ways, but at least they’ll have some kind of working knowledge of basic computing technology. Yikes.

Anonymous Coward says:

The problem with his statement (though I’m probably stating the obvious) is that the music file on the CD and the music file on the iPod are the exact same thing. The socks and the shoes are nowhere near as similar to each other as he suggests.

A better statement would be “ripping CDs to your iPod is like buying a book and reading it upside down”.

crade (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

except you have to do the transfer entirely through your own effort, so only your own property and your own effort are involved in any way. If you download the kindle version, someone else had to transfer the paperback to digital for you, which involves some amount of someone else’s effort that one could argue should be paid for, so to make it a good analogy you would have to transfer the book to kindle yourself :).

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 17th, 2012 @ 3:44pm

he is right in a way. he is saying that if you want a cd, then buy a cd, but if you want music for your ipod then buy itunes. he views them as different things. our argument is that if i buy a cd i should be able to do what i want with it – make it a coaster or convert the files for my ipod. i do not know which is more legally correct.

Spaceboy (profile) says:

Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 17th, 2012 @ 3:44pm

He is not right in any way. If I buy a CD I am buying the music, not the format. As long as I retain the CD after I rip it, I am obeying the law. If I buy the CD, rip it, then return or sell it, then I am in the wrong.

I have a PS3 that I no longer use and one day I sued it to prop a door open. Was I in the wrong? I was using it in a different way than Sony intended…

JEDIDIAH says:

Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 17th, 2012 @ 3:44pm

No. He’s just completely clueless.

The music on the CD is already digital. A sophisticated enough player could play that music directly even without converting anything.

You are only moving some files around.

It’s like installing PC software on your hard drive rather than keeping it on a floppy.

PlagueSD says:

Re: Re:

Or wearing your socks on the other foot. Maybe they should start sewing in “L” and “R” so we know what foot belongs in which sock. If you don’t wear compatible shoes with said socks, there should be all sorts of alarms that go off.

I’d better stop now before someone reads this and gets some wacky ideas.

MrWilson says:

I don’t know about you, but if I buy a CD, it’s for the purpose of listening to the music on it. I could have bought a blank CD if I wanted a CD without music on it (and in Canada, I would be paying a presumed-pirate tax on the blank media). The unique part of the CD purchase is the music, not the CD. The CD is just the physical container. Format-shifting is more like pouring the soda you purchased out of the official branded bottle it came in to consume it more easily in another cup. When you buy soda, you’re buying the liquid and the container is just a necessity. In the case of digital content, it’s just a side effect that the soda in the official bottle is a near-infinite source of the same liquid.

Chargone (profile) says:

Re: Re:

i agree with your point and everything, but i’d just like to point out a weird thing:

the place where i live has Really good water (when a recent earthquake hasn’t broken the water system or something). good enough that i believe they use it (or near by, similar sources) as the water in the bottled water bottles.

there’s still a big market for bottled water.

this is almost entirely due to the awesome bottles it comes in. *laughs* (the rest of it seems to come down mostly to it being easier to find a shop selling bottled water than any sort of publicly accessible drinking fountain or whatever when you’re out and about. pretty much anywhere that sells food has it, excluding restaurants that are trying to hard. heh.)

of course, the same logic still applies: people would be pretty pissed off (and the market for the stuff would basically die) if it was impossible to put anything else in those bottles.

Zangetsu (profile) says:

Apology

I would like to apologize on the behalf of the rest of Canada. Most Canadians can actually make better analogies. The only thing I can think of is that he was either trained by the patent judges in East Texas or the Dutch anti-piracy judge on how to make nonsensical analogies. To his benefit, however, his political ties are deep in the technology sector being a “Member in Good Standing of the Outdoors Caucus” and “Vice-Chair of the Auto Caucus”. Both of which use technology. Sort of. (Is there a Windows 8 Metro interface for shotguns? And how about that SYNC software in Ford cars?)

Chargone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Or maybe

actually, there’s more than you’d think.

they’re just mostly absolutely crap statesmen.

politics, particularly congress/parliament/whatever is one of the few jobs where the requirements to get in don’t have a damn thing to do with what you’re doing once you get there.

(winning popularity contests by outspending the other guy is NOT a skill the use of which is conducive to good government)

Rikuo (profile) says:

When people format shift, they’re basically changing what tools they’re using on the product.
In the case of CD’s, the tools are the CD and the CD player. When I format shift, I’m taking the content and playing it on a new tool, the iPod.
This is another way this guy’s analogy doesn’t make any kind of sense. Shoes and socks don’t use each other. Plenty of times I’ve worn socks without shoes, and vice versa. One isn’t needed to use or be used by the other.

When I moved into my current apartment away from the house I was then in, I had a ton of books. I didn’t have room for them, so I format shifted them onto my Kindle (downloaded the .mobi files, rather than laboriously scan in everything myself), then gave away the books. I don’t see any wrong there. Stephen King had already been paid for the Dark Tower series I had bought.

Robert (profile) says:

Colbert understands

I remember a hilarious Stephen Colbert Report episode where Stephen explains he has an airplane hanger full of Miami Sound Machine’s the Rhythm is Gonna Get You CD’s, as he purchased a new one every time he listened to it.

To the RIAA and labels, that would be the ideal situation, even if it would never fly. But hey, if they could buy that fantasy into a reality, they would.

agalvan (profile) says:

Wrong in many ways.

He’s right in a sense. You “purchase” not a CD but a permission to use the CD. The real question is: How much resources should be expended by law enforcement to find and punish people who trespass said “bought permission”? Given the permission being sold, I say not much.

It’s more like the clothing store saying: I don’t sell socks, I sell permissions to use socks. If you plan to use your socks with shoes that’s a whole other permission. That permission is sold separately.

Robert (profile) says:

Re: Wrong in many ways.

Isn’t just you purchased the right to access the content?

With cassettes you can use anything that can read from a cassette. With vinyl you can use a needle and Styrofoam cup if you want, you don’t need a phonograph player (unless you want your record to be listenable more than twice).

Even on the trials they go on about you paid for access to the content, you own the physical CD so you can chop carrots if you want with it. You paid for a license to access that content. They don’t specify HOW you access it or whether you convert it to another format.

Again, Del Mastro just really does not understand the digital world or even the technology used by the entertainment industry. The sad part is he is attempting to address Madam Speaker as if he knows what he’s talking about.

And since there was never an issue before with converting your vinyl to cassettes to play in your car, why is there an issue with converting a CD to play in your iPod?

It’s really about stupid politicians trying to lock shit down because they don’t know how to say “You can use it for personal use, like you can now, but don’t share it online as that deprives content owners of revenue.” You know, that would make sense, but they can’t legislate what makes logical sense.

I’m so dumbfounded, I want to email every MP and illustrate via the bag of chips analogy how wrong and out to lunch Del Mastro is, but without being rude or making him look silly. He honestly believes his analogy. So there’s no reason to be rude.

Watchit (profile) says:

Re: Wrong in many ways.

The idea that they are selling “permission” to use the CD and/or the content on the CD is silly, and impossible to enforce, so why bother? When you go to the store and buy a CD (wait people still do that?) once it’s left the stores hands it’s yours, the store no longer has ownership or say on what you do with that CD (unless it’s a rental). If anyone has a say it’s the person who actually owns the copyright to the content on the CD, but they don’t have anything to do with that CD, just the content on the CD. So, if you rip something off a CD for personal use, then guess what, it’s fair use. It’s only the copyright owner’s concern if you infringe on that copyright.

Almost Anonymous (profile) says:

Re: Circumvention

I have to wonder if you are joking. I can’t read squirrel’s Cracked link here at work, but the printer cartridge manufacturers began using the DMCA’s anti-circumvention clauses as soon as it was passed. They would put a stupid little circuit on the cartridge that told the printer it was “authentic”, and other manufacturers weren’t allowed to reverse engineer the circuit according to the DMCA, so could not sell after-market cartridges. Totally abusive use of that idiotic law.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

It’s unlikely that he’s being paid. It’s not him, it’s his party.

Harper (the PM) promised the USTR that Canada would pass whatever bill the RIAA/MPAA wanted. And he told his MPs that they will support the bill 100% or they’d get canned.

The party was told in no uncertain terms to say anything to justify the bill (C-11). It doesn’t matter how stupid it sounds, they just need to say it.

Chargone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

even when it doesn’t cancel, it weakens, which is still movement in the same direction.

what gets Really trick is triple negatives (yes, english has these). they usually involve subclauses though. especially when one of the negatives is actually idiomatic ‘not that this is far from unprecedented’ is slightly forced, but a decent example. ‘far from unprecedented’ means previous occurrences have been very common, the negative ‘un-‘ and idiomatic negative ‘far from’ canceling but the ‘not’ can negate the ‘far’ literally, making the thing mean the same as ‘almost unprecedented’ or the entire phrase ‘far from unprecidented’, which is responding to someone who said it Was, and telling them they’re wrong. (actually, triple negatives would seem to usually be refutations, now that i think about it.)

english is also usually nice enough to have a negative form of the relevant verb (‘forget’ for ‘not remember’ for example) in situations where this comes up a lot, so you can avoid them if you want to.

Anonymous Coward says:

When I buy a can opener to open cans, I am not limited by a certain size can. I use that one can opener on all cans. There is no sense in paying multiple times for one song. You can’t listen to one song on several different devices at once and make sense of them all. Only one device is being used at a time on that song that was purchased.

If the music industry is unhappy with that, as obviously they have coached this politician to speak about, I suggest they raise their prices to compensate them for that one song. Of course if people quit buying their ‘too expensive products’ no one is to blame but the music label. I don’t agree to rent said song, that is not what buying is, no matter how they want to word it.

You would have thought the music industry learned with the cratering of albums over prices/filler. They are still looking for that gold mine out of every purchase. Here’s a clue, lower your expenses and you’ll do just fine in business. Having law suits all over the world does nothing for improving the bottom line. Nor does it endear the customer to the music label.

If the music industry hasn’t noticed already, there are youngsters coming up that aren’t listening to music and buying music like their forefathers did. At the age of 14 is supposedly when you lock in what sort of music you will listen to the rest of your life. It speaks of the future of the music industry as a major player and why we are down to three major labels.

Like the buggy whip makers, the music industry needs to buy a clue before they are no more. Then the trolls can cry their eyes out. After all the ill will that’s been generated by those trolls as well as the lawyers, not a lot of folk are going to miss them in the future.

Kingster (profile) says:

The extension of the socks/shoes analogy...

Look, we members of the SMDA (Sock Manufacturers and Darners Association) need to feed our children. You need to understand that you can’t wear just ANY sock with ANY shoe that you wish. When you buy a new pair of shoes, you must buy a new pair of socks specifically for those shoes. If you want to wear those socks with a different pair of shoes, you’ll need to go buy a similar pair of socks. Socks may only be worn with the shoes that they are purchased for.

If we catch you sharing socks with someone else, or copying SMDA socks, we’ll take you to court.

bigpicture says:

Incompentent

There should be a law that if any politician shows any signs of mental incompetence they can be impeached. Put into the big House and Warranty voided.

Since they are supposed to be Public Servants, they should be subject to Class Action Suits, for dereliction of duty and misrepresenting Public interest. Out with these self serving bums. Where is the Pirate Party?

AB says:

Re: Incompentent

The Pirate Party is still in its infancy up here. I don’t believe it was even in the last federal election. What’s worse, because of the way Canadian elections work it will be a very slow climb for them here.

Unlike the USA we do not actually get to vote for our national leader. Instead the Prime Minister is chosen by the leading party (the members of which can be thrown out or granted special powers/rewards by said Prime Minister – you can imagine where that leads). As voters the best we can do is guess which party will win and try to reduce its power by making sure it gets as few votes as possible. If we are really lucky the leading party will get less then half the seats which makes it a ‘minority’ government and allows the opposition to prevent any truly ridiculous laws from passing. Unfortunately our current leadership won a majority government through a technicality despite actually having less then 50% of the votes. That’s why all these horrible bills are being run through as quickly as possible. In the last year before the next election there will be a giant media campaign to shift attention/blame, and the whole ball will roll over again for another run because people have amazingly short memories. Even if the competing party gets the ball it won’t make much difference since they all have pretty much the same backdoor connections.

Oh well, as long as the Pirate Party runs I will support them. Maybe one day…

Chargone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Incompentent

NZ’s a bit better set up and more resistant to such issues… but it does have them.

currently, as a matter of fact. lack of voter participation combined with that pattern of voting for the ‘least worst likely’ rather than ‘best fit’ party and voting for candidates based on their party affiliation (we shifted to MMP Why, exactly? silly people. though at least this habit is slowly dieing out) produce weird results though.

we currently have what is Functionally a single party majority government (it actually Needs a coalition with one or two parties that got only one seat to have a majority… but given the Nature of those parties, the idea that they’re independent entities is a joke) … when roughly 1 in 4 electors Did Not Vote, largely due to media reporting ‘opinion polls’ leading them to believe there was no point, that’s a bit suspect.

blah, had a proper point when i started.

our system has MPs elected directly for each electorate, FPP style. the party can’t get rid of them from Parliament at all, but can toss them out of the party. the problem is, one out of the party, if they don’t manage to make a Huge media circus out of it so everyone knows who they are and start a new party of their own, they’re never getting back in. but there aren’t actually as many electorates as their are seats, and the rest are filled by a proportional system. MMP uses this weird overlapping thingy where if a party’s members get more electorates than it’s share of the votes entitles it to it creates more seats in the house for that term so that the other parties get their proper share. if the party gets enough votes for more seats than it wins electorates (common), then members of the party off the list get in to fill ’em up. List MPs can be tossed out and replaced at the party’s discretion (Not the PMs.)

our biggest problem is that our PMs have somehow managed to use the anti-cronyism measure that requires ministers to be chosen from within parliament to usurp the GG’s power to appoint ministers. combine this with GGs who just rubber stamp laws, sign off on the PM’s choices for ministers, and pick the PM based on who leads the largest party in the coalition that manages to get a majority (… one of the early MMP elections took Three Months or more to actually resolve a Government because of this, despite the fact that legally the GG could have just appointed whoever the hell they wanted as minsters and been done with it, as parliament itself had already been elected. (officially we don’t even have a ‘government’ and ‘opposition’. we have an ‘elected parliament’ and an ‘appointed ministry’ who’s personnel happen to overlap. )

but yeah, gah, lost my point again. anyway.

basically, i sympathise. while not as extream, we do have the same sorts of issues here and the current lot are just the sort of people who would spout this sort of rubbish… were they not so adept at managing to hide any such laws and actions from the public in general. (public protest against this US inspired idea? ok, back down. there’ll be a crisis in the near future and we can hide it in with the fixes for that… oh, look, earthquake devastated our second biggest city. that’ll do.)

terry says:

Somethings Missing

With Dean Del Mastro’s analogy he is missing a very key point with music, nobody is going back to the store to steal any MP3s. There is only one visit to the store and it is for the initial legitimate purchase. They are taking the CDs they already own and have in-hand and fashioning the MP3s out of them. In his analogy that would be more like taking the socks you bought and fashioning shoes out of them and being expected to pay again because now they are a different product.

TtfnJohn (profile) says:

Backbenchers should be seen and not heard from during Question Period.

Even if they’ve reached the lofty level of Parliamentary Secretary which means they’ve reached the same level of influence as the bevy of feral cats who live and thrive on Parliament Hill. They don’t serve in Cabinet either though I hear there are always two or three kitties there. Parliamentary Secretaries are locked out with the rest of us.

Because he’s Prime Minister Harper’s Parliamentary Secretary and chair of the committee that’s looking at the new copyright act I’d have hoped he would be a little more informed about things like format shifting and the relationship with shoes and socks. I guess he’s never format shifted his socks by wearing them on the wrong foot which, apparently, you can’t do once this act is passed.

That he’s a complete idiot doesn’t surprise me at all. Peterbourgh has a history of electing people who will sit on the government side of the House. The electorate there is only concerned about whether of not the candidate is breathing or appears to be so that s/he can lobby for better goodies. Should he stop breathing during his term, Peterbrough still wins because they’re certain he’ll be appointed to the Senate just before rigor mortus kicks in.

Harper is usually better organized than this. Del Mastro will be spending a lot of time on the back benches now where he can’t say anything quite so stupid again because the Tory House whip will ensure there’s a couple of rolls of duct tape over his mouth.

Though be prepared to be betrayed by the Opposition on this bill. The Liberals and NDP were in favour of it when they had the votes to vote Harper of our office. Why they’d change now is mysterious unless one or both want a chance to grandstand on the evening news or on the TV network’s web sites the next day.

Chargone (profile) says:

Re: Backbenchers should be seen and not heard from during Question Period.

entertainingly, in NZ a while back (years now, probably) a cross-party selection of back-benchers attempted to have a law passed abolishing their own jobs, on the basis that it would save large amounts of money and they never actually DID anything. (speaking time was assigned to the Parties based on the number of MPs, not to the individuals. which lead to the top four or so (or, really, the top one or two plus whatever minister/opposition member was relevant to the issue at hand) using it all.

the back benchers’ argument was basically that their job could just as easily be done by cardboard standies… or even just a diagram clearly visible at the end of the room.

(officially any MP can vote any way they like on any bill. in practice, the only way to go against your party and have any hope of getting reelected (or not tossed out, depending on whether you got in from an electorate or a party list) is if your party declares the issue to be a con…(i can never spell the bloody word well enough for the spell check to know what i’m on about. think Jimminy Cricket) vote. that said, That’s only done when the issue is deemed to be ‘constitutional’ (basically pertaining to the processes used to elect parliament and little else) or purely moral And not part of the party’s campaign platform (often stuff that the leadership kind of wants passed but they realise that Officially approving of would leave the party hemorrhaging votes)… bizarrely, This sort of vote is actually less likely to go the way the public seems to want.)

Anonymous Coward says:

It’s MORE like someone who buys a pair of white socks for when they wear their tennis shoes, and likes them so much they want a black pair also to wear with a different pair of tennis shoes (all shoes legally purchased)… so they knit themselves a black pair of the socks in the exact same style, but without the branding…

Or… someone who buys a thoroughbred for racing, but they want another one just for riding… so they clone the horse and giddy-up.

Comparing data copying and encoding/decoding to anything in the real world is ludicrous. Nothing is ever being stolen when you copy data, unless it’s espionage (which involves PRIVATE data.) I’m tired of their idiotic stealing analogies. Revenue deprivation isn’t the same as theft.

The case should be pretty simple.

Case A: copying from a legally purchased CD to MP3 format for private use.

Case B: copying from any source, legal or ill, to any destination, in reasonably large quantities, with intent to distribute.

Case A does involve deprivation of revenue, but in limited scope and in a situation where it’s very arguably NONE OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER’S BUSINESS. The only question is, to what point should the liberty of the consumer be protected against the potential avarice of the rights holder?

Case B is pretty clearly a deprivation of substantial revenue in possibly unlimited scope with the intent to break the law and with specific intent to deprive some entity of revenue.

An analogy isn’t even necessary if you have enough brain cells to grasp the situation. His rhetoric is emotionally persuasive, though, and obscures the facts. I hate that.

IANAL, but it doesn’t seem to me that kind of talk would go over well when laws are being upheld in a courtroom, so why does it go on in the rooms where laws are made?

PatM (profile) says:

Just another scheme

My poor Mother, god rest her soul, took all her records to some guy and had him put them on to cd’s, which she left to me. None of these records can be purchased anymore. I still have the records and the record player too. I never use either. I guess this makes her a theft in todays world. I wonder if they will dig her up and make her stand trial LOL. My Dad also has tons of music on reel to reel which my Mother also transfered over to cd’s. Poor woman, I guess she’ll have to serve some time in jail for that too. 🙂 I have tons of cassettes, we all know that cassettes dry up and become useless over time, just like reel to reel, not to mention its pretty obsolete these days too, which is why I have a guy transfering them all to cd’s. Eventually I will rip them so I can play them in mp3 format on my phone, which will take me forever cause I have a massive and I mean massive music collection spanning from 1920 to the present. I refuse, refuse, to pay for the same music for each and every format that comes out just because others become obsolete. That’s pure robbery. And lets be honest remixes are not the same as original recordings. And what about my parents movies they bought on beta, remember those. Or my movies on vhs. I’ve got tons of these too. Does this guy expect me to go out and repurchase them too. Eventually I’ll be transferring them to blue ray. Most of these you can’t even find anymore and those that can be found are not the same. My parents had all of Alfred Hitchcocks movies and I watch them on the movie network here last month, totally cut, not the same. As for this Cnd. MP, he has the idea that we should pay and pay and pay for the same stuff as media players change. I refuse, put me in jail, sue me.

Oh Dear says:

Wrong Analogy

This politicians analogy is wrong. It’s like going into a store and buying a pair of stockings, then putting the stockings over your head and robbing the store of everything that they have, leaving the owner with nothing but a pair of old socks to their name.

The media industry is quite right on another point too: they’re selling you a licence to a pair of socks. You don’t own the socks. The industry has a right to inspect that you’ve properly licensed your socks to go with other apparel you might have licensed from them. It’s up to you to keep track of changes in license terms too; for example they might change the terms to make it illegal to wear socks with sandals. In that situation the industry has every right to take you to court if you’re discovered committing the heinous crime of wearing socks with sandals.

PaulT (profile) says:

Wow, no shills have come here to defend this? It must be bad!

Anyway, I agree with a few sentiments above – that this is probably some lobbyist’s instructions he’s misinterpreted, and also where this guy has been for the last few decades.

I mean, seriously? Ripping an MP3 from a CD is no different from when I was a kid, and we used to record vinyl and CD albums to tape so that we could listen to them in the car or walkman. Other than having the subsequent ability to then infinitely duplicate the resulting copy without quality loss, what I was doing in the mid-80s was exactly the same as anybody ripping to MP3 for use on their iPod today.

To be this clueless, he must have no idea how music has been used for *decades* – or have been paid enough to forget, of course…

Chargone (profile) says:

Re: 3Rss

NZ equivalent was ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’… because you’d do things in that order: buy stuff with less random packaging and the like in the first place, reuse it where at all possible, and when it’s no longer reusable, recycle it.

these days they’ve given up campaigning for such things and just replaced the old curbside rubbish bags with separate recycling, green waste, and other rubbish bins. the default is to make the recycling bin huge and the other two smaller. they pick up the recycling Every week and alternate weeks for the other stuff. (where possible you should compost green waste, and produce as little rubbish as possible, you see) you can, however, based on various things (including being willing to pay more) get larger or additional bins. some people just suck and throw everything in the rubbish bin anyway, but most of the recyclable stuff it’s just ‘put it with the dishes instead of the rubbish’ so it gets washed or whatever, then when putting dishes away, dump it in the bin. much easier than the old systems where you had to sort it and take it to recycling centers and so on. (and for more exotic recyclables the only change is which bin you put it in.)

all very cunning.

Mats Str?m (profile) says:

Being Swedish, I can’t help but wonder where such things leave me. Swedish consumer law grants me the right to make copies of anything, on any medium, for my own personal use. I even have the legal right to decompile software and change it to suit my needs. Another interesting part of Swedish consumer law is that no matter what I sign in the way of contracts, EULAs and TOSes, etc – I cannot sign my rights away.

This sort of makes me wonder if DRM on music, books and software is entirely legal in Sweden as it attempts to circumvent the law, but I can always find ways to circumvent it anyway – despite the fact that most software, music, etc from the US says I’m not allowed to copy it (and in my book lying about people’s legal rights should in itself be illegal.)

So what happens when I pass US customs in the future to visit a friend in Nebraska? I show up carrying 500 songs in my iPhone with no DRM, no receipts, no nothing, and a decompiled and modified copy of Windows 7 on my laptop. If I recall correctly, ACTA is one piece of exported legislation that contains (or contained) interesting bits allowing customs to rifle through your computer and phones for illegal copies.

The only way they can prove infringement, is to have Swedish police search my apartment and computer for the originals and digital receipts. Somehow I doubt this will happen.

What concerns me is that when I pass the US border, they will hold me to US law and whatever licenses, EULAS and TOSs came with the product, and ignore the fact that all the copies were made legally, and that their agreements are in part null and void due to Swedish consumer laws.

This shouldn’t change simply because I go on vacation but it’s a crazy world these days.

Steve R. (profile) says:

Homesteading "rights"

Fundamentally, when there is a technological advance, why should the content create be able to claim a “new” (homestead) ownership right. The consumer bought (from the consumers point-of-view) the right to use that content. Therefore the consumer should have the right to use it as they see fit.

(Of course the content creator well claim that they are only leasing a limited privilege, but that is bunk.)

fedup Canuck (profile) says:

Gooberment

This clueless b#st#rd and the other nut jobs he sits with are why I keep giving money to the NDP. I swear every time they open their yap it costs me a hundred bucks!

…and on another note, the decepti-Cons decided it was a good idea to cut back on heath inspectors again!

Isn’t that what got a bunch of people killed with listeria from the Maple Leaf food plant?

Why do people always die from the basic things like food and water when Cons are in power?

Thomas (profile) says:

Sheesh.

I buy CDs, and they are often NOT available on iTunes or Amazon. Why in the world is there a problem if I rip them into iTunes and put them on my iPhone as long as I keep the original CDs? Do they seriously expect me to not listen to music because I don’t have a CD player in my pocket and the music is only available on CD? Bullpoop. I have paid for the music, so who cares how I listen to it as long as I keep the original CDs?

Anonymous Coward says:

Im a dj and I have bought over 2000 records over the last 30 years I have them backed up onto a korg mixing deck so I never damage my originals and of course its easy to compile a music list without wading through 100 of records on the night. What your saying is a load of rubbish once you have purchased the music it does not matter what format you choose to store and listen to it

Digitalmannen (profile) says:

Illegal to listen to a CD

I wonder if they realize that if this law passes it will become illegal to listen to a CD in Canada.

Because when you are playing a CD you are format shifting it two tines (no wait at least three times). First the cd-player shift the digital format to an analog electrical format and then the speakers/headphones shift that electrical format to a pressure wave. And thirdly the human hearing organ shift it to some format that the brain can understand (there may be more format shifting taking place inside the head, I’m not rely sure how the biology works).

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