Canadian Copyright Horror: Criminalizing Bypassing Digital Locks; Forcing Students to Destroy Notes [C-11]

IP Law
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Skip Oliva sent me the following note about a chilling, censorious new copyright provision being debated in the Canadian parliament:

I’ve been reviewing C-11, a bill before the Canadian parliament to “modernize” the country’s copyright laws. The Conservative government is trying to push the bill through with minimal debate. The attention-grabber is the bill makes it a crime, punishable by five years imprisonment, to bypass a digital lock on content.

But here’s the really bizarre provision. C-11 actually requires students who take online classes to destroy their notes after the course is over. Here’s the actual proposed language:

It is not an infringement of copyright for a student who has received a lesson by means of communication by telecommunication under paragraph (3)(a) to reproduce the lesson in order to be able to listen to or view it at a more convenient time. However, the student shall destroy the reproduction within 30 days after the day on which the students who are enrolled in the course to which the lesson relates have received their final course evaluations.

Since the Conservatives have a majority in the House and are not shy about shutting down opposition, I expect this will pass next year when the House resumes sitting.

These insane attempts to ratchet up copyright law–with provisions like these, the DMCA, SOPA, etc., show that the state consists of completely sociopathic maniacs out to establish a police state and destroy the Internet and freedom in the name of so-called intellectual “property”. There can no longer be any excuse for so-called “libertarians” offering tepid, unprincipled justifications for copyright law. The time has come for all libertarians to call for complete IP abolition. No more excuses.

[C4SIF]

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Bonner on Government

Anti-Statism, Democracy
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Bill Bonner is absolutely one of the best essayists of our time. Never heard of him? He is the head of Agora Inc., and an impressive entrepreneur in every way. Check this essay and see what you think: The Diabolical Genius that Is Modern Government:

You’ll recall that this series began by pointing out how worthless most “theories of government” really are. They’re not theories at all. They don’t explain anything. Instead, they are just wishful thinking…flattery…and apologia for the elite who use government for their own ends.

The “social contract,” for example, is a fraud. You can’t have a contract unless you have two willing and able parties. They must come together in a meeting of the minds — a real agreement about what they are going to do together.

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TLS Podcast Picks: ACLU on Assassinations, Spying and The Constitution; National Security Letters and “Financial Institutions” and Classificationism

Anti-Statism, Podcast Picks, Police Statism
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Recommended podcasts:

  • “Assassinations, Spying and The Constitution: ACLU President Susan Herman Talks Big Government Taking Liberties,” Reason.tv (see video below) (“All of our elected representatives have to hear from a broad cross section of liberals, libertarians, conservatives–people who just say, ‘This is too much big government. We want our government back,” says American Civil Liberties Union President Susan Herman, author of the new book Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy.  … How much has the police state expanded since 9/11, and is there any way to stop it? Herman sat down with Reason.tv Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie to discuss the this and other questions surrounding the state of liberty in America. Herman notes that while there have been a few minor changes in policy, for the most part there’s been a remarkable continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations in terms of their disregard for civil liberties. She also discusses the recent assassination of American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki and the ACLU’s role in representing Al-Awlaki’s father in court.Interview by Nick Gillespie”).

In their discussion, Herman mentions the expanded use of National Security Letters (NSLs) since the war on terror began. A NSL may be used to seek customer and consumer transaction information in national security investigations from communications providers, “financial institutions” and credit agencies. Previously NSLs could be used only against people who were reasonably suspected of espionage, but the  Patriot Act now allows the Attorney General to issue NSLs even against people who are not suspected of criminal activity or of acting on behalf of a foreign power. And the letter can require the recipient to keep it secret. So we don’t even know how many of these are out there are when they are issued. Thus NSLs have become a far more invasive procedure the police state can use against citizens.

And in 2004, Congress expanded the definition of “financial institution” eligible to receive NSLs to include not only banks and credit unions, but also car dealers, jewelers, travel agencies, and real estate agents, among others.1 This is a good illustration of the state’s practice of “classificationism.”

  1. For background, see Charles Doyle, National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: Legal Background (Congressional Research Service, 2009); also here. ↩

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Rights Violations in the Name of Private Property

Business, IP Law, Technology
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[This article is based on a speech I gave at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, December 5, 2011.]

You know that anti-piracy video you sometimes see at the beginning of movies? It explains how you wouldn’t steal a handbag, so neither should you steal a song or movie by an illegal download. Well, it turns out that the guy who wrote the music for that short clip, Melchoir Rietveldt, says that his music is being used illegally. It had been licensed to play at one film festival, not replayed a million times in DVDs distributed all over the world. He is demanding millions in a settlement fee from BREIN, the anti-piracy organization that produced the thing.

Interesting isn’t it? When you have hypocrisy that blatant, criminality this rampant, practices called piracy this pervasive – it reminds you of the interwar Prohibition years – you have to ask yourself if there is something fundamentally wrong with the law and the principles that underlie the law. Yes, people should keep to their contracts. But that’s not what we are talking about here; this case is being treated not as a contract violation but a copyright violation, which is something different. We are dealing with a more fundamental issue. Is it really stealing to reproduce an idea, an image, or an idea? Is it really contrary to morality to copy an idea?

The verdict here is crucially important because ever more of the state’s active intervention against liberty and real property is taking place in the name of intellectual property enforcement. The legislation SOPA could effectively end Internet freedom in the name of enforcing property rights.

If people who believe in liberty do not get this correct – and it no longer possible to stand on the sidelines – we will find ourselves siding with the state, the courts, the thugs, and even the international enforcement arm of the military industrial complex, all in the name of property rights. And that is a very dangerous thing at this point in history, since IP enforcement has become one of the greatest threats to liberty that we face today.

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Dumbest Immigration Law Ever

Immigration
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For several decades, immigration has been the main source of economic growth in Alabama. Same with foreign investment and the people it brings in. Major swaths of the state would be sunk without both.

Immigration has brought not only economic growth but a much-needed cultural shift in the state. We now have ever more museums, schools, houses of worship of many varieties, and our theaters, movie houses, and orchestras are actually enjoying support. Alabama now has highly skilled hands that can do a variety of tasks that were impossible to get done before, from complex engineering to intricate tile work in public spaces. Of course the agriculture issue is gigantic: nearly all the workers were undocumented and now they are gone. Then there’s the food issue: without immigration, Alabama would be mostly burgers and chicken fingers. All of these industries, to one extent or another, rely on workers with sketchy documentation.

So what do the politicians do? This year, they whipped up an crazy xenophobic frenzy and passed a massive crackdown that led to a cruel mass exodus from the state. And they did this in the middle of a recession. Absolutely ghastly. And now the inevitable has happened: there is no one to fill these jobs. Industries are under serious strain. Businesses are going bust. Unemployment, which is already higher than the national average, is going up. There are no workers to do what the immigrants did because the necessary skills and work ethic just isn’t present in the native population (as any Alabama resident could have told you).

The latest solution: put the prisoners to work to fill the missing jobs.

Speechless.

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