ArsTechnica examines "Made-In-Canada DMCA"

Ars Technica reviews the new Canadian Copyright Act (Bill C-61) and comes back with a distressing, albeit not entirely surprising analysis.

The review can be found here

What's great about the review is that although it most definitely has a point-of-view (e.g. "...those pesky details... make even the "consumer-friendly" parts of the bill a bit less friendly."), the approach they've taken is to be very quiet on the judgement calls. Focusing more on the on-the-ground realities.

The other point that this article brings home is that while this bill is, in part, about curbing intellectual property theft by providing steep provisions for both preventative deterrents and punitive restitution of infringement, the bulk of the creator protections revolves around criminalizing backups of personal DVDs and CDs (movies, software and music) and criminalizing circumvention techniques that include dvd "backup" software, unlocking cellphones, and the like. The article explains that under the new law, it would be:

"...illegal to circumvent DRM [digital rights management] or to provide circumvention services or devices... In addition, rightsholders can go after those who bypass or break DRM schemes, giving them more ability to tie up content and devices simply by adding a bit of encryption."

What this means is that Sony, for instance, is free to encode their movies so that they'll only play on their DVD players, and I as a consumer must go and buy a Sony DVD player to make it play, or purchase the movie in another format (at full price) to play on a different device. If you think this won't happen, it already has. Apple's fairplay DRM scheme ensures that music purchased through the Apple store will ONLY play back on apple devices at its original quality (you can burn it to a CD and then re-rip it, but it sounds awful).

Anti-circumvention means that I can't take my DVD collection and rip it to my iPod. It also means I can't take music CDs with DRM and rip them to my iTunes. Media and content portability is completely criminalized if the creators so wish it.

My other big concern (and it is a big one) is what this will do to the homebrew community in Canada. For an explanation of why this is important, check out my prior blog post on Homebrew.

As to what can be done, I'm not sure. For now, you can look at the Facebook group for Fair Copyright in Canada, or keep checking Michael Geist's Blog. Of course you can always look at the resources listed on Professor Geist's "What you can do" posting.

The Revolution Will Be Home-Brewed.

I have a modded XBOX hooked up to my TV.

In addition to playing XBOX games, it has a few custom applications courtesy of a few hundred amateur developers. These non-standard features include a dashboard that shows me current and forecast weather conditions. It's connected to my network, allowing me to play rips of my DVD collection (wirelessly) and Music CDs. I can search and view videos on YouTube and Comedy Central. I can download and play amateur freeware games. I can point it to a folder on my computer with all my pictures and run a slideshow (with music) on my TV. Apparently, although I haven't tried, I can even download video on demand through BitTorrent, timeshift with a DVR (TiVo) application and remotely control it using a Facebook application.

This nifty modified device comes to me courtesy of a chum who is familiar with the XBOX Homebrew community. Homebrew, a sort of Do-It-Yourself open source development kit for hackers, is predicated on the notion that the information should be free (as in speech, not beer), and that if I buy a device, I should be able to modify or change that device in any way I see fit. This point of view is not shared by the computing and media industries who feel that if they can't control the distribution conduit, they'll quickly lose control of the mass distribution system that they are the gatekeepers to. As a result, and thanks to the industry-friendly Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Homebrew style 'tampering' carries criminal penalties in the US (a version of the DMCA is soon to be proposed in Canada, according to University of Ottawa Law Professor Michael Geist).

So my 79$ XBOX hacked with so-called Homebrew software provides me with a perfect lean-back IPTV experience that is, in some ways, far superior to the experience I would get with a 400$ AppleTV, XBOX 360, or PS3. In fact, virtually all the IPTV features on these 'advanced consoles were, for the most part, inspired by the Homebrew version. Everything from the feature set to the User Experience Design are being copied from the Homebrew versions to the newer consoles by the big guns at Apple, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

Still, what's the big deal? If these other devices all have the same features, so what? Well again, it's a matter of access. For the most part, only 'signed' (read: paid-to-play) applications can run on the non-Homebrew machines, and each of these consoles makes it very difficult for all but the most savvy to stream videos from their computers, preferring that consumers rent or purchase their videos (again, read: paid-to-play). Homebrew (access and information want to be free like speech) are decidedly NOT paid-to-play and represent a loss of control by the major distribution channels.

Now comes word from Slashdot that the venerable Wii has been hacked (without hardware mods) to include a Homebrew 'channel.' From Slashdot:

"The Homebrew Channel is a tool that can be installed on any Wii (no hardware mods required) that lets you run unsigned homebrew software from an SD card, or upload executables via WiFi or a USBGecko. We've tried to make it friendly for users with a simple GUI, and powerful for developers with direct upload features and reloading..."

While the Wii isn't a multi-media experience per se, with its focus on interactive gaming, it is an IPTV play, and you'll find weather, news, a Web browser (that can play back YouTube) social networking, and a game store on most every console. The Wii Homebrew Channel will provide the fuel to feed that fire, and with the recent port of the VLC player, it might even see some media applications make their way onto the system.

At the end of it all, this channel will be just another niche hobbyist's playground, installed on a paltry minority of Wii consoles. If history is any guide however, this channel may provide Nintendo with the Next Big Thing for their product. I wonder if they'll pay to play.

Slashdot | Unofficial Homebrew Channel For the Wii