[d@DCC] FW: Is the Competition Bureau Investigating so-called "Copy
Control" CDs? (not "Audio CDs" at all) (fwd)
Russell McOrmond
russell at flora.ca
Wed Nov 2 10:37:53 EST 2005
Summary of response from Competition bureau: We are required by law to
keep secret any investigations.
People should still be writing the bureau to ensure that it shows up on
their analysis of complaints. We may not know what they are
investigating, but we can still alert them to problem areas where they
should be investigating.
--
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
2359+ Canadians oppose Bill C-60. This bill protects antiquated Recording,
Motion Picture and "software manufacturing" industries from modernization.
http://KillBillC60.ca Sign--> http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 16:10:39 -0500
From: "CompBureau: #CB - BC" <Compbureau -at- cb-bc.gc.ca>
Subject: FW: Is the Competition Bureau Investigating so-called "Copy Control"
CDs? (not "Audio CDs" at all)
Dear Mr. McOrmond,
Thank you for your correspondence. The
Competition Bureau is an independent law enforcement agency responsible
for the administration of the Competition Act as well as three other
federal statutes dealing with the packaging, labelling and marking of
consumer products. For more on the Bureau's role please visit our web site
at www.competitionbureau.gc.ca .
The Bureau conducts its investigations in private
and keeps confidential the identity of the source and the information
provided.
Section 29 of the Competition Act:
Confidentiality :
29. (1) No person who performs or has performed duties or functions in the
administration or enforcement of this Act shall communicate or allow to be
communicated to any other person except to a Canadian law enforcement
agency or for the purposes of the administration or enforcement of this
Act
(a) the identity of any person from whom information was obtained pursuant
to this Act;
(b) any information obtained pursuant to section 11, 15, 16 or 114;
(c) whether notice has been given or information supplied in respect of a
particular proposed transaction under section 114;
(d) any information obtained from a person requesting a certificate under
section 102; or
(e) any information provided voluntarily pursuant to this Act.
Any information regarding cases or penalties imposed to businesses by the
Bureau is available to the public on our web site at
www.competitionbureau.gc.ca in the "News & Resources" section.
Regards
Information Officer
-----Original Message-----
From: CompBureau: #CB - BC
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 8:24 AM
To: Internet Complaints
Subject: FW: Is the Competition Bureau Investigating so-called "Copy
Control" CDs? (not "Audio CDs" at all)
> ----------
> From: Russell McOrmond
> Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 8:22:53 AM
> To: CompBureau: #CB - BC
> Cc: General Copyright Discussions
> Subject: Is the Competition Bureau Investigating so-called "Copy Control" CDs? (not "Audio CDs" at all)
> Auto forwarded by a Rule
>
>
Dear Competition Bureau,
I would like to confirm that bureau is investigating the problems in the
market for audio CD's. I use the term "audio CD" loosely as many of the
recently released CDs do not conform to the Red Book standard for audio
CDs (Compact Disc Digital Audio system, or CDDA).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_%28audio_CD_standard%29
Most consumers are not technical enough to notice the lack of the CDDA
trademark logo on a CD, and thus are not being made aware of the fact that
they are no longer purchasing a standard audio CD but something entirely
different.
Without this knowledge they are unable to be aware of the limits that
these CDs will have compared to the standard format that the consumer
expected to be purchasing.
The reality is that this technology, like all other "technical measures"
used by content distributors or DRM (Digital Rights/Restrictions
Management), does not (and can not) stop activities that Copyright
regulates. In all cases these technologies are used to technologically
impose limits negotiated in contracts. Many public interest policy people
call these rules "paracopyright".
Most of these contracts are between the content industry and technology
companies, with the terms of these contracts deliberately hidden from the
consumers who then have the terms of these contracts imposed on them.
It is important to remember that these hidden contract terms only affect
law abiding citizens. Those citizens with technical knowledge will always
be able to extract these files and convert to a DRM-free standard file
format. They will then infringe copyright by sharing the standard file.
In the case of many DRM systems it is as simple as extracting a key from
any authorized player (technology made available to all consumers) to
unlock the "digital lock" around the content. It only takes one technical
person out of the 6.5 billion people on the planet to decode the file, and
then it is available to less technical people to share.
Bill C-60 gives legal protection to this "paracopyright", these
technologically encoded hidden contracts. Since we are talking about
contracts there is a legitimate question of whether the constitution
allows the federal government can act in this area of provincial
jurisdiction.
See: "Constitutional Jurisdiction over Paracopyright Laws", by Jeremy F.
deBeer, Chapter 4 of "In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian
Copyright Law" http://www.irwinlaw.com/books.cfm?pub_id=120&series_id=3
We also need to ensure that these contracts are made transparent and
accountable as is the case for any other contract terms, including problem
contracts being reviewed by the federal Competition Bureau and the
provincial and federal privacy commissioners.
See: "If Left to Their Own Devices...: How DRM and Anti-Circumvention Laws
Can Be Used to Hack Privacy" by Ian Kerr, and "Anti-Circumvention
Legislation and Competition Policy: Defining A Canadian Way?" by Michael
Geist, two chapters of "In the Public Interest".
These hidden contracts are used in anti-competitive battles between
industry players that must be investigated. A recent article talks about
how Sony is using this technology in a battle they are having with Apple.
Sony prefers the Microsoft brand and is not happy with the success of
Apple's iPod and iTunes. They created a new CD format that was not an
audio CD but that some audio CD players would interpret as audio. The
purpose of the format was to lock people from being able to read the CDs
with Apples software. When people complained to Sony they are falsely
told that this is an Apple problem, and that they should write to Apple to
convince them to "open up" their iTunes store to other players (meaning,
the Microsoft player).
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
By Barry Ritholtz - The Big Picture
http://p2pnet.net/story/6808
While Apple has been very successful with their player and music store,
and should be investigated, it must be remembered that Microsoft was
recently scolded by Anti-Trust Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly about
contracting terms which would prohibit portable audio player manufacturers
capable of playing Microsoft DRM music from also playing competitors music
(mainly Apple).
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,123254,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp
Creators, their audiences, and purchasers of electronics must be
protected from these hidden contracts and the anti-competitive battles in
this marketplace. A first step for the competition bureau should be to
put these companies under investigation. The bureau must also intervene
in the Bill C-60 hearings to ensure that legal protection for these hidden
contract terms are not allowed in our Copyright Act.
If it is decided that legally encoded contracts need legal protection,
then this change to law must happen within appropriate legislation
(primarily provincial) in a way that allows for appropriate accountability
and transparency. We do not give legal protection for human readable
contracts with "fine print" that is not readable, so we should certainly
not be giving legal protection for digitally encoded contracts that are
unreadable to humans at all. We should not allow any disclosure of these
terms by third parties to be claimed to be "infringing" of some right.
More details on this issue are in this article:
Standards? What standards?
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/1095
Thank you.
Russell McOrmond
Full contact information: http://www.flora.ca/#contact
--
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
2359+ Canadians oppose Bill C-60. This bill protects antiquated Recording,
Motion Picture and "software manufacturing" industries from modernization.
http://KillBillC60.ca Sign--> http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/
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