Well it’s all over the news now. Jim Prentice, the Canadian Minister of Industry recently unveiled his proposed amendments to the Canadian Copyright Act, and they’re terrible. The amendments are even worse than the US DMCA, and if enacted into law, would make it illegal to do things like watching an out-of-region DVD, or even unlocking a cell phone for use on a different network! For a good overview, check out Dr. Michael Geist’s blog entry on the subject.

I’m not very politically-motivated, but after reading about these amendments I had to write to my MP to express my disapproval. I’m all for maintaining reasonable rights for the copyright holders, but I also want fair-use for individuals. Why? Let me tell you about my entertainment system.

I cancelled my cable TV subscription over a year ago and bought an AppleTV media player. I watch a lot of podcasts, and now I even use it to rent movies (thanks Apple Canada). In addition to all the free (and legal) podcast content, my wife and I have a rather sizable DVD collection. As we live in a small Vancouver condo, we don’t have room for a large entertainment system. Our fireplace mantle only has room for our television and AppleTV, nevermind a DVD player. So, we copy the video from our legally-purchased DVDs to our AppleTV for viewing, and store the DVDs for safekeeping.

Under Jim Prentice’s new Copyright Act, this behaviour (watching videos I own on a device I own) would be illegal. That is unacceptable to me.

If it’s unacceptable to you too, and you happen to be Canadian, then you can do something about it. You can use this website to send an email to Jim Prentice and your local member of parliament, and tell them how you feel. It’s quick and easy to do.

What really bugs me about all this is that Minister Prentice chose not to consult the Canadian people when drafting these amendments. Instead, he reportedly spent most of his time consulting with big media companies, US lobbyists and the US ambassador to Canada.

I am forced to wonder why Minister Prentice would draft a bill that would make criminals of ordinary Canadians, based solely on the input of US lobbyists? What’s in it for him? Obviously not the support of the Canadian people, based on the responses I’ve seen on the net and elsewhere. Maybe a shiny new car?

Here’s a YouTube video of a heated debate in Parliament over this issue.