[kwlug-disc] [Wsic] Your country needs you (or "Our MP is on the C-32 committee")

[Denver Gingerich]

On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 12:45 PM, L.D. Paniak
<ldpaniak at fourpisolutions.com> wrote:
> Didn't the FCC in the States recently rule that jailbreaking was just
> "enhanced interoperability" and therefore permissible?

Actually, it was the Librarian of Congress, who is basically the head
of the US Copyright Office.  Details about this specific rulemaking
session (it happens every 3 years) are here:

https://www.eff.org/cases/2009-dmca-rulemaking

When the Copyright Office website is not undergoing maintenance,
details are also available here:

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

While the jailbreaking exemption is useful in general, it isn't as
useful to iOS device owners because the EULA they agree to already
prohibits jailbreaking.  It would be better if the government said
that such clauses were not enforceable (in addition to saying
jailbreaking was ok).

These exemptions only last for 3 years.  If someone doesn't
successfully argue that an exemption is still needed in the next
rulemaking session, then it becomes illegal again.

This group will be interested to know that several people have asked
for an exemption for watching DVDs in Linux during every single
rulemaking session so far and every time the exemption has been
denied.

Of course, this exemption rulemaking is particular to US law and C-32
wouldn't automatically import the US exemptions into Canadian law.  We
would still have to fight for jailbreaking and other rights
specifically once C-32 was passed (assuming the bill remains
unchanged).

> The best outcome with the currently proposed legislation would be
> another election which shelves the whole process for two more years.
> Each iteration of it gets closer to being correct.

I think Bill C-60 (the first bill, introduced by the Liberals) was
much better than both C-61 and C-32.  It had no prohibition on
circumvention devices (it only prohibited offering a "service" to
circumvent) and only prohibited the circumvention itself if done "for
the purpose of an act that is an infringement of copyright" [1], which
would have ratified the WIPO Internet Treaties.  I wish had pushed to
get Bill C-60 passed instead of fighting against it because of some
slightly ambiguous wording.  What we have now (C-32) is several orders
of magnitude worse.

Denver
http://ossguy.com/


1, http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Docid=2334015&file=4
(see section 34.02)