another RIAA/MPAA evil empire?

Canada currently enjoys very liberal, and very open copyright laws. Now before you moan and whine about our theft of copyright and I.P owners, we also have a "tax" on blank media like CDs and DVDs which is directed to artists through trade organizations. So yes, we download a ton of illegal stuff using Limewire, Torrents, and so on, but we do "pay" a huge tax to do so. Everyone wins here. Now, I know a lot less burning is done these days as more and more content is piped directly onto iPods and other devices, people who buy blank media for other general purposes are also paying this tax even though they technically shouldn't.

Today, a news story just broke that Canada is basically going to copy the idiotic DMCA. This just shows the lack of back bone and integrity our Canadian government has. Why in the world would we want to clone a crappy piece of legislation? They tried it a few months ago, but there was so much protest to the plan, that they dropped it. I hope to whatever god you pray to, that the uproar now becomes even louder. We should not model our copyright legislation on the US version, and then fall victims to RIAA and MPAA lawyers. If record labels and movie studios would price their products fairly they would not have students downloading all their crap content to begin with. The system is out of control, and that has spawned the current craze to download everything for free. And honestly, there are so many peer to peer systems out there that can not be tracked by the RIAA/MPAA bloodhounds - this legislation won't really change the dynamic at play here. Pandora's box has been opened, and there's no turning back the clock anymore. Free download of content on the net is here to stay, it's up to the content providers to find new business models - the old draconian gouge the customer to the max just won't work anymore.

Canada has a chance to show wisdom and leadership on this issue. But what do they do? Copy the US. What turncoats. And i was going to vote conservative next election...