http://dearthey.com/...-little-brother-politely/

Its time to separate the awkwardly feminine from the possibly Canadian

The Omnibus Crime Bill passed over a month ago.

Where is martian. He normally has an opinion!!!

that's dearthey.com, not deathray.com. why martian have an opinion about it?

The majority party won't make any changes to it. It's ridiculous.

I think the copyright act is definitely due for updating. I tried to read through the amendments today. It's such gobbledigook that it's near impossible (and arguably impossible in some instances) to piece together what it means.

I read through the current copyrights act. The sections and subsections are so clear. The ones to be added are very confusing and often ambiguous.

I didn't even really get into understanding how the digital locks provisions would work. It's really confusing reading. From the parliament debate transcript I read I do not think that many of the commenting MPs had a particularly good grasp either.

The provisions about having students throw away notes and delete content from their school classes is hilarious. It basically says that institutions have to make sure that copyrighted content is not allowed to be used beyond school sanctioned activities. So 30 days after students are done exams they must get rid of their notes if they contain possible copyrighted info.

So that question the prof copied from the back of a textbook (which no doubt copied it from somewhere else) is grounds to force you to trash your notes. As if any of the content distributed in undergrad classes isn't copied from somewhere else. It's all the same, everywhere, and every new copyrighted thing is basically plagiarizing another older copyrighted thing. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Thank god for ocwconsortium and MITx. Now people won't have to deal with these sh*** social networking institutions that charge you insane amounts to make you learn free information in a specific manner.

bonus post

as h4 said. In any case unenforceable laws end up being irrelevant. Regarding that particular piece of legislation, two provinces refuse to put up the money required to enforce it and the feds won't pay so ummm gl with that.

Ironically, the party in favor of mass decentralization has gotten burned by decentralization here. The provinces of Ontario and Quebec run their own policing and can effectively control how/if criminal laws are enforced in spite of the fact that constitutionally they don't have that power. Yes, the federal government can in turn bolster the RCMP and send them in too, but they don't want to spend money on that sooo...

As a funnier example Ontario runs it's own railways which they shouldn't be doing either and yet Ontario now has the leverage to blackmail CN rail and effectively halt federal rail projects they don't like. In fact, the province effectively has the power to put a halt of all east-west trade now which is not something they are supposed to be able to do. I don't think this will ever happen but it's kind of sad that it's even doable. Sadly because the law of the land says the *federal* government is responsible, it's the federal government that would get sued.
Put up or shut up:)
It's also kind of funny that the province of BC can effectively stop alberta from exporting oil west should they really feel stupid about it. The port/export is federal. The pipeline is federal. But "environmental assessment" and utilities are provincial meaning that legally BC can stop the pipeline from ever getting built simply by drowining it in bureaucracy and there's no legal recourse... For all you americans clammering for more decentralization, be careful what you ask for.