Canadians could be thrown in jail for watching TV

[SpiralDragon]

whats up fellow canadians????

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14403

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/02/20/Consumers/satellite040220

[Brian Ellis]

If the date were 1 April, I could understand these reports. Even in this "underdeveloped" (compared to Canada) country, I can watch channels of any origin and can receive TV in at least 20 or 30 languages. In fact, I watch the CCTV (Chinese) documentaries at least 30 min/week on an average; many of them are very interesting.

I take it freedom of speech is not a Canadian issue???

[ZokesPro]

That Inquirer article sounds bogus to me. And as far as the other article, if it hasn't passed then there's no worries.

[gt40]

It's all true, but the first article is a bit skewed.
Our satellite TV is so lousy that there are MORE users of the american satellite system than both the canadian systems combined.
this whole legislation is nothing more than a big push by Bell (the operator of one of the canadian systems) to force legal action against those using the american systems.
Politics, lawyers and money - thats what it's all about.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

no, if u read the articles carefully, its all about illegal satellite services, and like Gt40, its clearly one of those big pushes by Bell, so they can get more money if people don't use illegal services.

and no, our freedom of speech is perfectly fine, besides, we have our own local chinese channel here anyways.

Its Inquirer... clearly they are biased towards Canadian, judging from their tones.

i.e.:

Believe it or not, they're actually planning to make it a criminal offence to watch certain TV channels.

You ARE allowed to watch it, as long as you pay for it, and not through illegal systems.

Inquirers....

[agallag]

I think the point is that the channels these people want to watch are not available through legal systems. Therefore, you're not allowed to watch it. Even if you pay an american carrier for the channel, you're still breaking the law.

It's the same catch-22 as the fair use laws... you can legally copy a DVD, but you can't legally break the copy protection, therefore you can't legally copy a DVD.

[lecter]

Well if the DVD itself is home-made by yourself or someone else (i.e. not commercially-distributed), I see no problem in copying DVDs.

[agallag]

Originally posted by lecter
Well if the DVD itself is home-made by yourself or someone else (i.e. not commercially-distributed), I see no problem in copying DVDs.

My point is, it's totally legal to make a copy of a commercially-distributed, copyrighted DVD. For backup or for having a copy on a different media, you're totally within your rights to copy them.

[gt40]

The first satellite providers in Canada were American 'grey' market providers.'grey' because they were not allowed to provide service to Canadians - so anyone who wanted to subscribe had to have a US postal box in order for the american provider to provide service.
Which they did knowingly (most canadians paid with credit cards belonging to Canadian banks).
there were plenty of Canadian companies that provided US addresses and subsciption (much like american 'reverse grey market providers' that do the same now for US citizens wanting Canadian sateliite)
Along came the Canadian providers, with all their politcal friends and all that changed.
Up till now, the government really had no legal provisions to stop people from watching US TV. They only could prevent the US companies from actively selling their services.
Keep in mind, most of these new laws will only apply to subscription based, encrypted signals. As I understand it they will not be concerned with the ethnic 'free to air' services as they won't be stealing any revenue fron the Canadian satellite suppliers.
Other wise it would also be illegal for Torontonians to put up their antennas and pick up broadcasts from Buffalo.

Thank you for giving us a choice, oh wise government!

BTW, I do subscribe to a premium package from a Canadian supplier.
but, If i wanted to watch something different, it wouldn't be to hard to do so.

[schmosef]

Re: Canadians could be thrown in jail for watching TV

Originally posted by SpiralDragon
whats up fellow canadians????

r u Canadian?

[Jon P. Inghram]

I think he's implying that the new Canadian TV regulations seem to be similar to the regulations in his country, Lebanon, unless he's actually a Canadian living in Lebanon.

[gt40]

I beleive the Dragon will reach our shores early this fall.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Ah, yeah, forgot he's moving.

[paulcs]

Originally posted by agallag
It's the same catch-22 as the fair use laws... you can legally copy a DVD, but you can't legally break the copy protection, therefore you can't legally copy a DVD. [/B]

This appears to be a step in the right direction:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/28/BUG8T5ACGB1.DTL

Paul