[mythtv-users] Copyright Legislation in Canada

Brad DerManouelian myth at dermanouelian.com
Wed Jul 9 16:57:19 UTC 2008


On Jul 9, 2008, at 3:28 AM, Daniel Buijs wrote:

> Currently most aspects of MythTV are legal in Canada. I would like
> very much for it to stay legal. However, under the proposed C-61 the
> following aspects of MythTV would become illegal in Canada:
>
> Keeping the original recording after transcoding.

If there is no technical protection measure on the original recording,  
how could this be considered circumventing a technical protection  
measure?

> Archiving recordings.

This is the same as your first point.

> Keeping recordings after watching them more than once.

So is this.

> Watching DVDs (All DVDs have CSS on them. de-CSS would be considered
> circumvention technology)

You mean all *commercial* DVD's. It's not illegal for me to make a DVD  
from my camcorder and then make copies of it. That's how I use the DVD  
Ripping portion of MythTV. If you install de-CSS (which is NOT a part  
of MythTV), then you have to deal with those repercussions.

> Ripping DVDs to your hard drive

You keep making the same point over and over again to make it look  
like there are more points. You just said this one.

> Depending on your remote control, programming your universal remote
> control.

IR codes do not contain technical protection measures. See point #1  
above.

> For HD programming, recording any program with a "Broadcast Flag"

Absolutely I agree with that. If you record something with a broadcast  
flag and watch it, you are circumventing a technical protection  
measure. MythTV contains no code that allows you to do that.

> While it's true there is a private copying levy in Canada, this only
> allows the copying of music files.
>
> Believe it or not, it's actually worse than DMCA. Under DMCA in the
> US you still have Fair Use provisions. If this bill is passed, you
> will have no Fair Dealing rights on digital media.
>
> I don't know about you, but I really don't appreciate it when the
> government proposes legislation on something they clearly don't
> really understand and it turns me and millions of other Canadians
> into criminals.

I agree. This law should not pass based on the little I've read about  
it, however even if it does, I still don't see how MythTV would be  
illegal in any way.
Oh, I also hate top-posting. Maybe there should be a law about that.



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