TPM coming to Canada

[Marc Branchaud]

M Taylor wrote:
> 
> It mentions a nice top heavy certificate rich method or a DMCA like law
> as two TPMs that might work in their opinion.
> 
> The legal aspects are to be dealt with in a later part of the study, 
> the tone is fairly optimistic that TPM can work well enough to
> preserve revenue to copyright controlers.

Do you have a pointer to that second study?

I haven't fully read this paper, but a quick glance leads me to believe
that it's fairly balanced.  Consider:

 - Section 4, "Circumvention", ends with "As will be discussed in
greater detail in our second Study, the motives for circumventing TPMs
articulated above suggest that a policy choice that would result in
anti-circumvention laws should be approached with great caution."

 - Section 5.2, "The Policy Implications of DRMs", has the following
passage: "However, the degree of control that publishers will obtain
over works in a digital environment could also result in attempts to
apply and enforce copyright in ways never previously contemplated by
Canadian copyright law. For example, it might allow copyright holders to
exclude various forms of public access to a digital work. This very real
possibility could entirely undermine the delicate balance between
private rights and the public interest that copyright law seeks to achieve."

 - Section 6, "The Future of TPMs", discusses two general approaches
"thought to assist in minimizing the threat of circumvention" --
technical and legal.  The brief technical discussion points out the
shortcomings we all know.  The even briefer legal discussion refers to
the second study, saying the legal approach "is fraught with other
difficulties".

So I'm not sure I agree with your pessimistic assessment of the paper,
though I'm very keen to see that second study.

		M.


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