Until now, the act of copying and sharing files such as songs or videos has been a grey area of Canadian law. There has been no law in place that has restricted citizens from doing this, but not for lack of effort.
A decade ago, the federal government tried to make our copyright laws more stringent and in line with American copyright law with Bill C-61. The bill was easily defeated in parliament due to backlash from voters, and there was no consultation with the public on how it would actually work. So with the death of the bill, Canadians were free to get media through file sharing software like LimeWire and BitTorrent.
This brings us up to the present. The federal Conservatives are tabling Bill C-32 which will drastically change the copyright laws in Canada, giving big media firms recourse in the event that someone has obtained copyrighted material without purchasing it.
So what does this mean?
Firstly, it changes what we can do in the privacy in our homes and the anonymity we can maintain with our Internet Service Providers. Bill C-32 gives the government and the police sweeping powers not only to monitor traffic that contains copyright material, but to potentially monitor files on personal computers.
Canadian citizens are concerned that this is a major invasion of their privacy. The bill has been criticized by both consumer groups and academics for how it marginalizes and even criminalizes the sharing of media to an extent detrimental to fair use. Where does this monitoring end? How do we know that only information about copyright material is distributed to the government agencies? Are we not enforcing a kind of censorship on the Internet similar to what exists in China?
The answers are unclear. How would we ever know what information the government has covertly obtained about our surfing habits through our ISP? We wouldn’t. The government and corporations could very well keep a file on each citizen, especially those who are charged with illegal file-sharing. Information about our surfing habits, what we purchase, what we view. Everything could be monitored.
On the flip side of this government action are the Canadian artists that willfully and knowingly put their material on the Internet for the purpose of sharing. Under Bill C-32, even this would become illegal to download. That would seriously hinder the promotion and success of Canadian artists who would become unwilling victims in this bill. Also, under this bill, artists would have severe restrictions on songs considered ‘covers.’ The bill clearly states that “a person who performs a published sound recording in public or communicates it to the public by telecommunication is liable to pay royalties.” This means that bands or performers have these restrictions on the songs they can perform. Furthermore, think about the impact it would have on groups and artists that are just starting out, or work as semi-professionals in the entertainment industry. A simple wedding singer could be held liable to pay royalties for covering a song at a reception!
Specifically for students, a provision that sets out the rules of ‘fair use’ of copyright media, however is almost contradictory in another section of the bill. For example, I could not figure out what the new rules would be when it came to accessing articles, video, or audio recordings for the purpose of research. This area is quite confusing, but at first glance it could possibly be interpreted that students would have to pay for access to resources already obtained through licenses from their post-secondary institution.
In conclusion, if the bill is passed, we all have to become very aware of the content that we download or share by any other means than those set out in Bill C-32. Privacy concerns will be abundant, and I am sure there will be challenges that could even go to the Supreme Court of Canada. I have little doubt that this bill contradicts our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and, in doing so challenges the very notion of what it truly means to be Canadian. Let us just hope that this bill suffers the same fate as Bill C-61.
