The Secret Coup

In a secret coup, US security agencies have apparently taken over the United States Government.  With key members of Congress, the Executive has given itself secret powers, authorized by secret laws, interpreted by secret courts.  There is no accountability at all.

To facilitate this takeover, the President, his Administration, its agencies and House and Senate leaders have conspired to conceal the nature and scope of these activities from Congressional and Judicial oversight.  They have subverted the Constitution and broken both the law and their oaths of office, an impeachable offense.

These are crimes under US law.  You can argue all you want, but from Obama on down, the defense of these programs amounts to "If the President does it, its not illegal", to quote Richard Nixon.  He was wrong about that.  And what we are talking about here is 10x worse than anything Nixon did.  Watergate was a personal scandal.  Here, the Administration has declared a permanent state of war, and is permanently suppressing Constitutional rights.

This is not an abstract issue.  Reuters has uncovered that the DEA was getting information from these illegal programs and concealed the source of their evidence from Federal Judges in criminal cases.  That is a major crime and people should go to jail.  Another impeachable offense.

Note I am not just specifically accusing Democrats.  The Republicans are in this up to their necks as well.

Its all going to lead to a political crisis.  At least it better. 

UPDATE Aug. 8
Reuters is reporting that the IRS also participated in concealing the source of evidence gained from NSA intercepts.

NSA Scandal, The Other Shoe

As the NSA details continue to leak, I'm looking for one in particular.  In most Western countries, the intelligence services are forbidden from spying on their own citizens.  I'm guessing, and its only a guess, that one of the many functions such services carry out is to spy on each other's citizens and exchange the information, thus avoiding the prohibition on domestic spying.  Again this is only speculation, but it would explain some of the bizarre behavior around Edward Snowden.  European governments are condemning US spying on the one hand, but embarrassingly intervened with the Bolivian President's flight home on the other.  Spain, Portugal and France covered themselves in shame over this incident.  If they are so pissed off about US spying, why would they risk serious international embarrassment over this flight?  Because there is a lot more to this story than we know now. Being seen as American lapdogs is a very poor political position, especially in France.  Possibly the incident was a result of American diplomatic pressure, but I doubt it.  Something more fundamental is going on.  Given the leaks of the last month, I think that something will come out.

The Defense of Marrage Act

    Bill Clinton signs the Defense of Marrage Act into law, September 21, 1996.

The Defense of Marriage Act, just overturned by the US Supreme Court, was as cynical and opportunistic a political ploy as I've ever seen.  That opportunism was exemplified by Bill Clinton, who signed the Act into law in order to clear the playing field for the 1996 election and yesterday cheered its reversal.

The only thing the Act was intended to defend was the Republican Congressional majority.  By creating a controversy, the Republicans hoped to stimulate turnout among their base.  That it fostered discrimination and persecution was irrelevant.

Everyone at the time thought it would be swiftly overturned by the courts, because it was so obviously discriminatory.   Due to the Bush Presidency, that didn't happen. Had it been overturned early, there would have been few political implications.  However, things have changed.  As a result, the overtuning of the Act will lead to full recognition of same-sex marraiage at the Federal level.  In a sense, the opportunistic effort to win the 1996 elections has led to de-facto approval of Gay marriage by the US Government.  And Bill Clinton comes out a winner. 

Yap

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.  
Dostoyevsky

Pix

         Rosa Parks, December 1, 1955

Why Bobbies Don't Carry Guns

     With a look like that, he doesn't need a firearm.  London, 1984

There is an interesting article at the BBC about why British Police don't carry firearms.  Among other interesting statistics in the article, a 2006 survey found 82% of officers don't want them.

A Note To Vic

     Photograph by: Reuters , Postmedia News via the Vancouver Sun

To the Hon Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews
Somewhere in the back woods of Alberta

Hey Vic.  Hope you are having a nice summer vacation.  You must be quite busy with the dock or something, so this Omar Khadr thing is going to have to wait.  Anyway, the Americans have him all locked up safe and sound until you get around to it.  Maybe after Labour Day.  Or Thanksgiving.  You are the Minister for Public Fucking Safety, after all.  Its your decision.

So this Khadr guy's lawyers claim Canada had a deal to take him and put him in a Canadian prison.  But it wasn't real for keeps deal.  It was more like a suggestion.  A proposal.  A trial balloon.  Not in any way a commitment.  The Americans don't really want him to leave, they just have to say that. They love him.  He's the only jihadi in Guantanamo who's ever up for a party.  The rest just lay around whining.

Besides, the guy is a fucking terrorist!  The Minister of Public Fucking Safety doesn't let terrorists into Canada.  The Minister if Public Fucking Safety keeps terrorists OUT of Canada.  He's not really a Canadian anyway.  His parents were fake Canadians.  That makes him a fake Canadian too.  So he was a child soldier.  So he was tortured.  So the evidence against him is full of holes.  So fucking what?  He must be guilty of something.  The Americans say so.  You don't end up in Guantanamo for skipping Sunday School.

So, its your decision.  But you have to be careful.  You can't risk Khadr escaping from a Canadian prison, or getting sprung by some idiot judge.   In 10 minutes, he'll be massacring American Combat Medics all over the Eaton's Center.  We all know he's got hand grenades.  Harper would ream your ass so hard you'd have shit come out your nose.

No Vic.  Stick to your guns and keep at that dock, or whatever.  There's no hurry.  Its not like Khadr is going anywhere.  To tell the truth, we don't want him back anyway.  So many problems.  So many complications.  Can't anything ever be simple?  But you know, there's all that information you need to study before making a decision.  Years and years of transcripts to go over!  Trials, and interrogations, and intelligence and background and lots of other stuff too!  It could take a long time.  A very long time.

Cheers
Squidhammer

Payback

The other juicy scandal in the US concerns a Congresswoman, Jane Harmon (D-Dumbass).   She was caught in a legal FBI wiretap making a deal to try and get charges against two Israeli spys dismissed in exchange for lobbyist support for her political ambitions.  But she wasn't charged.  Instead, the Alberto Gonzales blackmailed her to support warantless wiretapping.  Nice.

Anyway, Glenn Greenwald (who is usually too over the top for my taste) evicerates Harmon with her own words.  He's not very nice, but it is certainly satisfying.

Yap

Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link.
Paul Krugman, April 22, 2009

War Crime

The above photo shows white phosphorus wafers falling on Gaza.  You can see the burning wafers bouncing off the roofs and pavement.  They burn at C2700˚ until they are deprived of oxygen or completely consumed.   Contact with any of the wafers guarantees at best a swift, painful death.  At worst, a slow, agonizing death.  The people in the photo are literally running for their lives.  I photoshopped the picture to lighten the shadow areas, no retouching was done.  Original photo is here.

White Posphorus is a nasty incendiary weapon. It not only burns in contact with oxygen, but the smoke and the burned or unburned residue are highly toxic.  It is permissible under International Law to use incendiaries either as a weapon or as a concealing agent (a smoke screen) against military targets.  However, the use of incendiaries against military targest is prohibited in areas containing civilians.  Indeed, incendiaries are illegal against even military targets as long as other effective weapons are on hand.  Though not classified under International Law as a chemical weapon, many countries regard it as such.

An official Israeli military manual puts it thus:

“Incendiary arms are not banned. Nevertheless, because of their wide range of cover, this protocol of the CCW is meant to protect civilians and forbids making a population center a target for an incendiary weapon attack. Furthermore, it is forbidden to attack a military objective situated within a population center employing incendiary weapons. The protocol does not ban the use of these arms during combat (for instance, in flushing out bunkers).”

The people visible in the photo are unarmed.  Even if there were a brigade of Hamas soldiers off camera, it makes no difference.  You cannot use phosphorus against civilians and there are civilians in the picture.  The picture is therefore definitive evidence of a war crime.  The individuals responsible for authorizing use of the weapon and those responsible for its delivery are war criminals.  Period.

The Intellectual Property War: A Turn of The Tide?

      Captain Copyright, From a ludicrous and short-lived pro-copyright campaign by the Canadian version of the RIAA - Yes this is real
Two developments in the US legal system last week may indicate a turn of the tide in the Intellectual Property (IP) wars.  The first was a significant Federal Court ruling limits what can be patented and invalidates thousands of questionable existing patents.  The second was a novel and very persuasive constitutional challenge to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) lawsuit campaign against individual file sharers.  As they play out, these two events should mark a significant change in the legal landscape for IP world-wide.

When it comes to IP law, the US leads the world.  This is due to several factors.  First, the US is by far the biggest exporter of IP.  Second, the technology that has changed the nature of IP mostly origionated in the US.  Until recently, US internet traffic has been greater than the rest of the world combined.  Third, Americans tend to settle things through litigation rather than legislation.  So there is always lots of action on the IP front.  Lastly, IP is one of the fault lines in the macro development of the post-national world.  Briefly, the nation state is becoming obsolete due to globalization.   The nation state will not disapear, but it is evolving.  There are two competing models to replace it: the EU regional state approach, and the American corporate state approach.   IP is a key point of conflict because it represents the tension between corporate and public ownership.  Companies want to extend their control over products past the point where consumers make the purchase.  Consumers want the opposite (which is ok) and whatever they can get for free via digital distribution (less ok).  The ideal world for content creators is when the consumer pays every time they access a particular peice of content.  They want content to stay live and open-ended (licensed like software) rather than dead and purchased like a book.  The stakes are immense in terms of revenue.  But technology so far has trumped the political and legal weapons of content owners.

There are three types of intellectual property under US law, and each is rife with litigation.  Trademarks are commercial property and give a company a monopoly on the use of a term in a particular business.  I can't start a computer company called Apple.  But I can start a tire company called Apple.  Apple has trademarked the term for use in the computer business.  This is a sensible law that protects both companies and consumers from fraud by third parties.  Unfortunately, trademark is now widely used by companies trying to surpress use of names outside their industry, or by people saying things about the company that they don't like.  For example, Monster Cables routinely sues anyone that starts any business in the US with "monster" in the name.  The test for a trademark infringement is the "idiot in a hurry".  Would an idiot in a hurry think your company A is really company B with a similar name?  Or would an idiot in a hurry think your effort that mentions company B is actually sanctioned by company B?  If so, you are probably infringing.  But real trademark infringements are rare, usually restricted to counterfeiters deliberately trying to fool consumers.

Patents are the second type of IP protected by US law.  Patents are a time-limited monopoly on the design of devices.  Patents are specific and require detailed description.  You can't patent an idea.  The law has traditionally required devices to be 1) novel, and 2) non-obvious before they can be patented.  Patents are granted by a government agency, the Patent Office.  One must apply for a patent, providing all the relevant paperwork and support material.  A patent examiner goes through the application and either grants or denies the patent.  The process is supposed to be difficult because a patent amounts to a government enforced monopoly.  Monopolies are good for monopolists, but bad for the public.  That's why monopolies like the gas company are heavily regulated.  The rationale for patents is that a limited-time monopoly is necessary to encourage the resources needed to invent new technology.  Most countries have a very similar regime to the US.

Unfortunately, several things happened to distort US patents.  The first was creation of a special court to deal with patent cases.  This should have been a good thing, but it didn't work out that way.  Some questionable rulings were made, and because the patent court had limited oversight by the rest of the judicial branch, it was difficult to challenge these.  Second, one of these rulings was that patents could be granted out not only for devices, but for methods.  This ruling allowed patents on software, algorithms, genes and other intangibles.  Lastly, the US patent office was underfunded and unable to deal with the flood of patent applications created by the methods ruling.  Examiners lacked the expertise to deal with software and the time to look for prior art.  So they just granted most applications and let the courts sort out which ones were correct.  The result was chaos.  It is now widely accepted that the US patent system has broken to the detriment of economic performance.  There are so many dubious patents that it is becoming difficult to bring new products to market.  It has happened before with the US aircraft industry.  It took WW2 to clear the logjam.

Techdirt summarizes last week's Federal Appeals court ruling on the original case that legitimized business concept patents:

The summary is that the court has said that there's a two-pronged test to determine whether a software of business method process patent is valid: (1) it is tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or (2) it transforms a particular article into a different state or thing. In other words, pure software or business method patents that are neither tied to a specific machine nor change something into a different state are not patentable.

Emphasis in original. This is an extremely important ruling.  Battles are currently raging in several countries, and the EU over software patents.  This ruling will take the wind out of the sails proponents.  A significant argument they were making was that local companies would be at a disadvantage if they could not patent things that were patentable in the US.  In addition, this should be the end of patent trolls.  Companies that buy up patents and sue everyone  making something even theoretically similar.  Patent law is remote from consumers, being something litigated between companies.  However, the number of dubious patents and the aggressiveness of patent holders in the courts has had an enormous impact on product development in the US. This chilling effect has not only retarded development in high-tech.  It has had a very dramatic impact in medical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

The last type of IP covered by US law is the most familiar.  Copyright is the limited ability for a content creator to control their creation.  It protects the expression of an idea.  A story about teenage wizards cannot be copyrighted.  A story about a teenage wizard named Harry Potter who attends a school called Hogwarts can.  When someone in the US downloads a song or a movie from the Internet, they are infringing copyright.  Note that copyright infringement and theft are not the same thing, despite their frequent conflation.  Theft deprives the owner of an object, copyright infringement does not.  Infringement denies the owner a sale, assuming that the infringer would have purchased the item had they been unable to acquire it illegally.  

Obviously, the Internet and digital file-formats have dramatically changed content distribution.    Remember when a copy of a copy of a videotape was lousy?  That was analogue, every digital copy is exactly the same as the original.  The Internet gives people the means to distribute these perfect copies between themselves.  The problem for content owners like music companies is that their business model is based on scarcity.  If you wanted a song, you had to buy a copy from the record company.  They were the only ones who had original high-quality content.  Now, everything is different.  Rather than adapt to the new situation, the US content industries tried to impose the existing business model on the new world.  They successfully lobbied for new IP laws and have used the power granted by these laws to prosecute individuals for infringement.  The RIAA has sued over 30,000 individuals in the US.  Most settle out of court for some thousands of dollars rather than incur the legal fees required to fight.  However, the legal basis for the RIAA's actions is questionable, as are the methods they use to acquire information on individuals they want to sue.  In cases that have gone to trial, the RIAA has lost all but one, and that ruling was subsequently put aside by the judge who declared a mistrial.   Many in the US legal community are unhappy with the way the RIAA has used the legal system as a bludgeon and look forward to a reckoning.

Apart from the legal problems, the RIAA's approach has been suicidal from a business point of view.  Not only have they had zero impact on the number of files being shared, but have covered themselves in negative publicity.  That negative publicity on its own has reduced their revenues and created enemies throughout the technology industry.  Two years ago, the RIAA switched tactics and began to sue Universities who failed to stop file sharing on their internal networks.  This was a promising avenue because students are big file sharers and Universities are unlikely to risk huge fines to protect them.  Unfortunately for the RIAA, they are as inept at law as they are at business.  Some Universities successfully fought back based on privacy concerns and the questionable tactics of the RIAA at collecting evidence.

Notable among high-profile schools, Harvard has never been sued.  This has occasioned comment.  The tech press speculated that the RIAA was afraid of their potential counter-attack.  They were right to be.  Harvard law professor Charles Nesson got tired of waiting and has intervened in an unrelated RIAA action against an individual, Joel Tannenbaum.  Nesson has made a novel and devastating constitutional challenge to the entire RIAA legal strategy.  The law gives the RIAA a statutory penalty much greater than the market price of the infringed music.  They can collect as much as $150,000 for a song that sells for $0.99 at the iTunes store.  Typically, they settle out of court for between $500 and $1500 per song.  The counter-argument Nesson advances is that the legislation enabling these suits is unconstitutional.  It amounts to a criminal law being run by a private entity for its own profit.

Imagine a statute which, in the name of deterrence, provides for a $750 fine for each mile-per-hour that a driver exceeds the speed limit, with the fine escalating to $150,000 per mile over the limit if the driver knew he or she was speeding. Imagine that the fines are not publicized, and most drivers do not know they exist. Imagine that enforcement of the fines is put in the hands of a private, self-interested police force, that has no political accountability, that can pursue any defendant it chooses at its own whim, that can accept or reject payoffs in exchange for not prosecuting the tickets, and that pockets for itself all payoffs and fines. Imagine that a significant percentage of these fines were never contested, regardless of whether they had merit, because the individuals being fined have limited financial resources and little idea of whether they can prevail in front of an objective judicial body.  

Yikes.  If you have any interest, its worth reading the whole thing.  Nesson goes on to eloquently demand compensation for Tannenbaum and others targeted by the RIAA based on their abuse of the courts.  That could amount to a half a billion dollars.  Not something the RIAA's money losing members would care to contemplate.  If successful, the argument would also derail the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) legal strategy.  The MPAA has been far more judicious in their use of the courts, but their aims have been similar.  Both met the Internet revolution with a counter-revolution via the Congress and the Courts.  This may be at an end.

Together, these two legal developments promise to revolutionize the landscape for IP law in the US.  Many fundamental legal issues remain to be settled, but we can hope that the tide is turning.

Pix

Why, an attentive reader might wonder, are most of the pictures you post either old or from space?  Copyright is the answer.  This blog is hosted on a Google server in the USA, so anyone who wants to take it down can do so via a DMCA complaint to Google.  I don't want to violate the law unnecessarily, and I do want to give proper credit to photographers.  In practice, that means a reliance on images 1) created by the US Government or its agencies, 2) from Wikipedia where the copyright status is clear, 3) images old enough to be out of copyright, or 4) photos published online in places like Flickr where I can link back directly to their post.  Some of these can still be dodgy, but you have to take some chances or don't post at all.  For political stories, I'd love to use images from AP or Getty, and would happily pay to get high quality and legal photos.  But their licensing schemes are aimed at commercial use.  A single photo of the size I like to use would cost hundreds of dollars.  This is too bad as I'd probably spend $100 a month with Getty if each picture cost $10.  But that's not how they want to run their business, so I don't use commercial photos if I can avoid it.  The only exceptions are photos so widely reproduced that my usage is unlikely to attract attention, or where I alter the image sufficiently to make a fair use claim.  So readers can get a preview of upcoming photo posts by trawling NASA , Wikimedia or Flickr.

Big Brother's Achilles Heel

The Plettenberg Bay Traffic Department (South Africa), sent a summons to the owner of the Volkswagen pictured above. The department's camera clearly shows the auto traveling faster than the 60km limit. Pretty much a slam-dunk conviction, you'd think. The photo and story came from The Daily WTF. There is a reproduction of the entire summons.

I really love this kind of thing, no sarcasm. Sometimes I worry about the emerging big brother systems in Europe and the USA. That some governments are keen to use massive computer systems for law enforcement and keeping order is no longer a paranoid fantasy. It is coming true. I don't think anything can be done to stop it. However, there is all the difference in the world between always-on monitoring and a repressive police state. Seriously.

Stalin was the perfect dictator, in the perfect storm sense. He didn't have computers, or CCTV, or biometrics. He didn't need them. Such technology would be useful, but is not necessary. Complete political control makes the structure of dictatorship. As long as those operating the CCTVs aren't required to belong to a particular political party, or have a commissar watching them, these systems are functionally useless to the dictator.

They can, obviously, be enabling if a dictator can gain control. But most dictatorships are really kleptocracies in disguise. Creation of a determined lack of accountability more often protects corruption than ideology. Compare China and North Korea. North Korea is a real, Stalinist, ego-driven dictatorship. China went through periods like that, but has degenerated into corruption. The leadership will allow anything that does not come between them, their personal financial opportunities, or the monopoly on power than creates those opportunities. Ideology doesn't come into it. That is why there are no more cultural revolutions or great leap forwards. That kind of ego-politics is bad for business.

During the Cold War, there was an ongoing debate about the inevitability of a Communist state producing a Stalin. Now we know the answer is no. What is inevitable is an East Germany or a China. Not because they are Communist, but because the leadership has no accountability.  These states get taken over by thieves who displace or co-opt the ideologues.  They become kleptocracies who's lifetime varies inversely to the greed of its leaders. The more restrained the leaders, the longer they can get away with it.

Which brings us back to technology. It doesn't work. Technology cannot produce dictatorship because technology is stupid. Corrupt, inefficient bureaucracies can't use technology to impose central control because they are corrupt and inefficient. Such systems, however, can enable petty tyranny very well. Just look at US airports. But the technology isn't a means of control in those situations. The technology is a means of corruption (through contracts) and way to protect the petty tyrants from accountability. The two always go together.

The venality, incompetence and rigidity of the would-be dictatorship makes a real big brother like monitoring regime impossible. In real life, the cameras are pointed the wrong way. The file systems are incompatible. The servers go down at critical moments. Turf wars prevent interoperability. Greed ensures that contracts go to vendors who's systems are crap.  The technology that ends up getting deployed is easily hacked.  The whole technology driven police state model doesn't work.

The traffic ticket at the top is an example that gives away the game. Its not about enforcing speed limits (control). Its about tax revenues for the government and revenue for the company contracted to run the system (greed). This can be petty dictatorship, but never the real thing.

RANT: Bill C-61 Canada's Copyright Cave-in - Update

photo: AADL.org
If blacksmiths had been as well organized and connected as the music industry, horses would still be a common sight and automobiles a tightly controlled rarity.

I don't like Bill C-61 (Canada's proposed new copyright law). Some form of copyright update is certainly due, this bill is entirely the product of lobbying by US multi-nationals and the Bush administration. The bill's shortcomings have been widely condemned. Three things, in particular, have drawn criticism. First, Industry Minister Jim Prentice promised public consultations before a bill was introduced. The only consultations he actually had time for were with the US Ambassador and several content ownership lobbyists. Second, the consumer "rights" introduced in the law are inadequate for the way people use purchased content. Lastly, the "rights" themselves are overruled by any Digital Rights Management (DRM) introduced by the content owners. The anti-circumvention clause makes it lllegal to break DRM, or to posess the tools to break DRM regardless of purpose or intent. So you can enjoy your right to rip a CD for your iPod, as long as the record label doesn't include DRM on the CD to prevent ripping. It is also worth noting that many Canadian artists and artist's associations are against this law. Bill C-61 was formulated to protect the interests of multi-nationals, not artists.

Critics have also pointed at messy clauses that make compliance nearly impossible. For example, not only uploading copyrighted material becomes illegal, mearly "making available" files for digital distribution would also be illegal. You don't have to actually commit the crime of infringement, you only have to capable of it. Also, it will be legal to use tools that protect your privacy, but illegal to distribute such tools. WTF does that mean? Jim Prentice doesn't know. He brushes off such questions as "too technical". Many legitimate and (currently) legal software programs used by Canadian consumers contain tools to circumvent DRM. You probaly have such programs on your computer.

Besides these objections, two more things really bother me. First, the bill assumes that whoever puts the DRM on the content is always right, and the customer always wrong. That amounts to a get out of jail free card when it comes to Provincial Consumer protection. Product doesn't work as advertised? Too bad, its a DRM issue. You must have broken the DRM rules, that's why it doesn't work. Case closed. There are numerous examples of bad DRM implementations. Here two current examples of DRM going horribly wrong with no consequences for the vendor.

In April, Yahoo! announced that they are closing their current online music store. Last week, they announced the DRM servers that provide continuing authorization for music purchases will go offline September 30, 2008. Music that has been purchased through the store is periodically re-authorized. This is done when you upgrade your operating system, or move the music to a different device. Its also possible a firmware upgrade for your device could trigger an authorization. Firmware upgrades are usually automatic, without user intervention. If you do something that triggers an authorization after September 30, the music will deem itself unauthorized and refuse to play. It just stops working. Yahoo promises to "take care" of customers, but declines to specify how and leaving the onus on the customer to figure out why their music doesn't work and contact Yahoo for releif. Most importantly, this is a good-will gesture by Yahoo. They are under no legal obligation to do anything for these customers. Today, it would be legal in Canada to simply strip the DRM off the tracks and continue using them. Bill C-61 would make it illegal to circumvent DRM regardless of reason or intent and subject to a statutory $20,000 fine .

The PC game Mass Effect, released June 2008, calls home every 10 days for re-authorization. If it can't reach the authorization server, or if it decides your CD key is compromised, the game shuts down. In addition, you are allowed 3 installs per CD key. Upgrading your OS (e.g going from XP to Vista) counts as one of your 3. Re-installing Windows because it breaks? That counts as well. I have to re-install Windows at least once a year. Upgrading certain hardware on the computer also counts. Which hardware in particular? That's a secret. In the case of Mass Effect, you do have an option if the application bricks. You can call Bioware and beg for a new CD key. In at least one case, they refused to issue a new key to someone that had re-installed Windows. Again, if this were my game, I'd crack it in a minute. But after C-61 comes into effect, I'd be committing an illegal act.

My second objection is that a blanket prohibition on circumventing DRM gives content owners (frequently foriegn corporations) the ability to decide what is legal and illegal in Canada. This is just wrong. We have an elected Parliament that decides what the law is supposed to be and a courts system to interpret and apply those laws. There is no room here for a music executive in Los Angeles to say "this is legal" and "that is illegal" in Canada based on the latest snakeoil pitched by some DRM company. No taxation without representation. No legislative power without electoral accountability.

After all that, the really shocking thing is that DRM doesn't work. It has never worked, and it probably never will work. Before the latest DRM locked content hits the stores, there are cracks available online. That's not an exaggeration. None of the currently planned DRM schemes will work either. Content owners are trying to find new ways to lock the content to hardware because cracking software DRM has become trivial. Unfortunately, it will again be only the honest that are penalized. With Emulation now hitting the mainstream, tweaking the "hardware" that Windows thinks it is running on will become as trivial as cracking software DRM is now.

Even worse than the fact that it doesn't work, DRM imposes unreasonable restrictions on the way customers use the purchased content. Songs will work on one device, but not another. Sometimes they won't work on different devices made by the same manufacturer. Limited installs, time-outs, remote authorization, required installation of police-ware, crippled quality. As there are no standards for DRM, every company outsources their DRM from different suppliers. There is no uniformity of usage rules, privacy standards, or implementation between vendors. Different products from the same label or publisher can have completely different DRM schemes. For example, the PC Game BioShock, developed by BioWare and published by EA (just like Mass Effect), had the phone home component dropped due to customer outcry. The 3 strikes install rule was not included either. So these two games created and published by the same two companies have completely different DRM enforced usage rules. Content downloaded from the Internet has none of these restrictions. It can be used, shared, re-used, transferred, re-encoded and used as much as the customer likes and is usually of higher quality (for music anyway). Why on earth would someone want to pay for lousy content when the same content is available in better quality for free? The unintended consequence of this bill is to make it clear: only suckers pay for content. DRM punishes the honest and provides incentives to be dishonest.

Lastly, C-61 protects music companies and movie studios from technological change. In the 1920's, the music industry tried valiiantly to block the introduction of Radio. It would destroy the sheet music business they argued. Well, they were right about that, but the sheet music business was replaced with the vastly more lucrative recording business. Jack Valenti, the movie studio's great warhorse said in 1974 about Cable TV:

A huge parasite in the marketplace, feeding and fattening itself off of local television stations and copyright owners of copyrighted material. We do not like it because we think it wrong and unfair.

During a massive battle to make VCRs illegal, Valenti testified to the US Congress in 1982:

I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

Today, movie studios make far more profit on DVDs than they do at the box office. So the industry crying wolf is nothing new. The only thing that is new is that governments are caving in and giving them what they want. If blacksmiths had been as well organized and lobbied, horses would still be a common sight and automobiles a tightly controlled rarity.

-----------------------------
Update July 29
Yahoo has announced that all customers of the ill-fated music service will be given DRM free tracks of a full refund. Commendable and good for Yahoo. Unlike Microsoft, who left customers in the lurch until public outcry forced them to keep the DRM servers running.