[mythtv-users] Torrentocracy

[Andrew Hogue]

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004, David Huseby wrote:

> -] It's people like you that get things like
> -] the broadcast bit passed into law fucking it up for the rest of us.
>
> It is a good thing that we now have software radios (www.gnuradio.org).
> We will take back our fair use rights one way or another.  The ultimate
> end to the struggle over fair use rights is for the government to ban
> general computing devices on the dubious grounds of protecting copyright
> holders.  Heck, Canada already has a piracy tax on DVD-R/CD-R media and
> drives.  So that begs the question, "if I pay the piracy tax, does that
> mean it is legal to pirate stuff?"  Or better yet, "why do I have to pay
> a piracy tax when the act of piracy is illegal?"

The 'piracy-tax' in Canada allows a very limited amount of copying from a
legal point of view.

Basically it allows a person to make a copy of a music cd that they don't
own legally.  However there are a few caveats.  Here is an example of what
is legal:

 - Sue buys a CD
 - Sue lends the CD to Jack
 - Jack buys CD-R media
 - Jack copies the CD to the CD-R media
 - Jack gives back the original CD to Sue.

Now here is what is illegal still:
 - Sue buys a CD
 - Sue buys a CD-R
 - Sue makes a copy of CD to the CD-R
 - Sue gives the CD-R to Jack

Even though the end result is the same, in the second version, Sue is
distributing which is still illegal.

Needless to say, it basically makes it perfectly legal in Canada to
download Mp3's and copy them to a CD-R but it is illegal for a person to
actually put the Mp3's online.

Nothing is said about movies however.  Only music cd's and Mp3-players
like the iPod are taxed.  Hard drives are not taxed yet.

-- Andrew