TrinTalk

Yet another conflict boils between musicians rights versus consumer needs. Only this time, it’s the musicians going against the copyrighters, stating that the new legislation is unfair to consumers.

“As we feared, this bill represents an American-style approach to copyright.  It’s all locks and lawsuits,”

The Canadian Music Creator’s Coalition says that this new law is unfair to those who choose to illegally download their music.  They say that it is clear that the world is changing, especially in regards to digital media.  Because of this, conventional american methods do not work to protect musical artists.  Simply suing the pants off of someone who downloads a few songs is no longer a valid solution to the problem, and passing further laws to do so is exactly the opposite of what needs to be done.

“The question is, who gains from this bill?” explained Brendan Canning, co-founder of Broken Social Scene and a CMCC member.  “It’s not musicians.  Musicians don’t need lawsuits, we don’t need DRM protection.  These aren’t the things that help us or our careers.  What we do need is a government that is willing to sit down with all the stakeholders and craft a balanced copyright policy for Canada that will not repeat the mistakes made in the United States.”

The full article can be found here  (Thanks BoingBoing)

Anyone who persists in illicit downloading of music or films will be barred from broadband access under a controversial new law that makes France a pioneer in combating internet piracy.

reports Charles Bremner from the NYT.  Thanks to a new law in France, the first country in the world has passed a law enabling the government to limit a citizen’s access to the internet in response to high levels of “illegal” net activity.

In recent years, more and more wars have begun regarding the government’s place in regulation of the internet.  Battles over net-neutrality have taken the attention of many online technology blogs, and have even found their way into political campaigning.

On college campuses all around the country, a similar trend can be found, with some schools restricting their student’s internet access for times ranging from a few hours to multiple days, in an effort to crack down on repeat offenders of media piracy.

The full article can be found here