Canada to check travellers for pirated music/videos at borders

Conor108

Oh Jaysus! With most people (probably) downloading illegally - massive-er queues:eek:

Canada is about to prove itself good friends with movie studios and record companies, trying to pass the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) we’ve been hearing about for the past few months. The idea behind this proposed international agreement is to search iPods, mp3 players and electronic devices for pirated videos and music at Canada’s borders, and get other countries in on the crazy ransacking of people’s rights, too. The agreement also aims to stop peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent.

Link

Ross_Mahon

They will have to take me down guns blazing, i love my music!

RandolphEsq

What BS. It will never go through

latenia

I'll just carry a 4gb USB key in my rectum.

ballybay_eh

This may be a stupid question but how can they tell if the songs on your mp3 player are legal or pirated?

Canadian Officer: Can I see your iPod, eh?
Me: Yeah... Here.
Canadian Officer: Hmmm... Did you pay for this copy of Madonna's new album?
Me: Of course officer.
Canadian Officer: Really?!? You shouldn't have. Its sh*t!

marco_polo

latenia wrote: »

I'll just carry a 4gb USB key in my rectum.

Just 4? 8GB ones are pretty compact these days too

Run_to_da_hills

Will they have MP3 Sniffer dogs?

AlmightyCushion

Pavee point will be up in arms about this.

Rb

Just goes to show how much power these companies have I suppose.

Run_to_da_hills

Rb wrote: »

Just goes to show how much power these companies have I suppose.

If we get a YES vote for Lisbon we will soon have an anti counterfeiting squad set up by the Euro Police authorities.They will know exactly who has illegal MP3s on a player because either it will be a multimedia mobile phone like the Nokia 95 or a wifi based Ipod or mp3 player. The service providers will have track of what you have or else It will transmit a signal as you pass any portal scanner where there will be authorities ready to arrest you :eek:

JC 2K3

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

If we get a YES vote for Lisbon we will soon have an anti counterfeiting squad set up by the Euro Police authorities.They will know exactly who has illegal MP3s on a player because either it will be a multimedia mobile phone like the Nokia 95 or a wifi based Ipod or mp3 player. The service providers will have track of what you have or else It will transmit a signal as you pass any portal scanner where there will be authorities ready to arrest you :eek:

No... Just no.


Anyway, how are they going to check every MP3 player for pirate music? And how can they tell if it's pirate or not?

monkeyfudge

But all the songs on your iPod have been illeagaly copied to it though...

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

I don't want to get stuck behind the guy with four million tunes on a laptop goign through customs while they check every single song for legallity....

And what wbout the ones burnt from a legally bought CD? If you don;t have said CD with you?

Run_to_da_hills

JC 2K3 wrote: »

No... Just no.


Anyway, how are they going to check every MP3 player for pirate music? And how can they tell if it's pirate or not?

Quite easily, demand a receipt or proof of purchase. I can imagine a purchased MP3 or Itune would have some kind of a digitally encoded receipt. Its up to you to prove you purchased it. An inspector could run a programme that could scan out illegal tracks in seconds from your collection.

I am a DJ myself and If I were to use MP3s I would have to be very careful that I carry hard copies, ie origional CD's. PPI or INFACT can demand to audit any collection of music for counterfeits and have carried out raids in the entertainment industry.

You are allowed use copied MP3s only provided you have the original. Ireland is still years behind in policing MP3's used by DJs, Most inspectors are still looking for bootleg cds in night clubs. but it wont be long before laptops used by DJs will have to be registered. In Holland its a e10'000 fine for playing illegal music commercially.

JC 2K3

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Quite easily, demand a receipt or proof of purchase. I can imagine a purchased MP3 or Itune would have some kind of an encoded receipt. Its up to you to prove you purchased it.

1. There are millions of MP3 players already in existence and none have support for this digital receipt of which you speak, are you suggesting that we make all existing MP3 players illegal?
2. Even if there were a digital receipt system in place, it would be cracked - just like every other copy protection attempt.

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I am a DJ myself and If I were to use MP3s I would have to be very careful that I carry hard copies, ie origional CD's. PPI or Infact can demand to audit any collection of music for counterfeits and have carried out raids in the entertainment industry.

AFAIK, DJing is different though. Don't you need a special licence for all the music you play or something?

We're not really talking about music being played commercially here, but people's personal MP3 collections.

monkeyfudge

I'd have thought that the bar that you are Djing in is paying it's fees to IMRO already.

Voodu Child

Daft sensationalist article. Apart from the impracticality of it, even Canadians wouldn't be stupid enough to allow such an invasion of privacy. Not going to happen.

Run_to_da_hills

JC 2K3 wrote: »

1. There are millions of MP3 players already in existence and none have support for this digital receipt of which you speak, are you suggesting that we make all existing MP3 players illegal?
2. Even if there were a digital receipt system in place, it would be cracked - just like every other copy protection attempt..

The whole Digital game hit the music and movie industry by storm, they were not expecting it.
basically they tried shutting the gate after the horse had left. They were still marketing CDs for 20 quid while many kids in school were downloading and swapping hard drives of hundreds of gigs of MPs. It is only relatively recently they are getting very tough on it and making examples of people

JC 2K3 wrote: »

AFAIK, DJing is different though. Don't you need a special licence for all the music you play or something?.

If I play in a venue its up to thr Pub or venue to hold an IMRO licence that will cover a DJ for the night. Most pubs and nightclubs would have it.

JC 2K3 wrote: »

We're not really talking about music being played commercially here, but people's personal MP3 collections.

I don’t know what way things will go but having a hard drive full of illegal music is like having a lump of dope, if its for yourself and you get caught you would probably get a slap on the hand, if you were caught with more than one hard drive of the same music you could technically be seen as dealing, same goes for uploading. It will be the torrent sites that they will really clamp down on. Already there is new laws coming in that your service provider can rat on you if they suspect you are breaching copyright laws.

There is a fine for having an illegal copy of a cd/dvd for personal use could be imposed if you were caught buying cds/dvds from the travellers at a market, more than likely the authorities would confiscate what you have and ask you where you got them. The fine for intent to supply (Dealing) is a different thing.

JC 2K3

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

The whole Digital game hit the music and movie industry by storm, they were not expecting it.
basically they tried shutting the gate after the horse had left. They were still marketing CDs for 20 quid while many kids in school were downloading and swapping hard drives of hundreds of gigs of MPs.

Totally agree, however, you said that checking for pirate music could be implemented "quite easily", and you haven't responded to my concerns as to why it couldn't be done very easily, if at all effectively.

Overheal

They can suck my dick before i'll ever let them onto my laptop.

Run_to_da_hills

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Totally agree, however, you said that checking for pirate music could be implemented "quite easily", and you haven't responded to my concerns as to why it couldn't be done very easily, if at all effectively.

In Holland an inspector can walk into a restaurant/coffee shop/club with a pen drive and check the laptop used by the DJ for illegal music in minutes. Maybe a similar method could be implimented to Ipods and MP3 players in the future. Because this whole game is so new and hit them by surprise they have yet to work out a solution and im sure they are working fast on it. They will clamp down on the commercial guys first before they clamp down on the kid with his Ipod.

I am sure my Nokia N95 is well capable of ratting to what ever authority of all my illegal MP3and videos that I have stored on it.

Tha Gopher

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I am a DJ myself and If I were to use MP3s I would have to be very careful that I carry hard copies, ie origional CD's. PPI or INFACT can demand to audit any collection of music for counterfeits and have carried out raids in the entertainment industry.

You are allowed use copied MP3s only provided you have the original. Ireland is still years behind in policing MP3's used by DJs, Most inspectors are still looking for bootleg cds in night clubs. but it wont be long before laptops used by DJs will have to be registered. In Holland its a e10'000 fine for playing illegal music commercially.

Id no idea!

Though tbh lets say you are playing, I dunno, some early 90s Prodigy tune, and the lads raid. Cant you just claim its your own production? Some oul fella from the inspectors office will hardly know will he. Obviously if they raid a wedding and the DJ is playing some Barry White he robbed off Limewire, yes, found out. Likewise any well known pop tune. But 90s dance surely would be off the radar?

Aside from that, what about playing remixes?

Run_to_da_hills

Tha Gopher wrote: »

Id no idea!

Though tbh lets say you are playing, I dunno, some early 90s Prodigy tune, and the lads raid. Cant you just claim its your own production? Some oul fella from the inspectors office will hardly know will he. Obviously if they raid a wedding and the DJ is playing some Barry White he robbed off Limewire, yes, found out. Likewise any well known pop tune. But 90s dance surely would be off the radar?

Aside from that, what about playing remixes?

More than likely any good DJ playing the prodogy would be using decks, an area where PPI or INFACT could not be bothered with. A Vinyl cutting machine will cost you in the region of 5k Sterling and that dose not include blanks which would probably be e10 each. http://www.htfr.com/more-info/MR34618

There is also various hardware/software packages for linking up MP3 collections to digitally timed Vinyl on technics 1210's using Stanton and Serato Scratch. http://www.ryanstevens.co.uk/content/binary/fs2_setup.jpg

ScumLord

Is this a toliet/

MagicMarker

This would really suck for me seeing as i'll be heading back to Ireland at the end of the year... I have a 320GB HD full of music and movies as well as a **** load of TV Series.

Although, i can't really see this happening, certainly not in the near future.

kaimera

Isn't there a few countries in africa/Middle east or so that check hdds also ?

I'm not sure myself

Run_to_da_hills

MagicMarker wrote: »

This would really suck for me seeing as i'll be heading back to Ireland at the end of the year... I have a 320GB HD full of music and movies as well as a **** load of TV Series.

Although, I can't really see this happening, certainly not in the near future.

That would be the equivalent of finding 5760 CDs not too long ago someone in Dublin was hung drawn and quartered in court for having only 40Gigs of MP3's. The courts gave him a hefty fine and made an example of him. The guy was downloading from a pirate torrent sites unknown to the fact that he was also leaching out his 40gigs at the same time. In other words he was seen as dealing, he got a knock on the door with a summos. (Ten people were also caught around the same time, I think in some of these incidents the parents had to fork out fines of up to 3K)

If you have 320gigs of stuff you would be safer having it either in an external caddy or not in your main PC if its on line, there is all sorts of spy ware out there that can detect your stash particularly if you are using some of the shareware stuff. You are really looking for trouble if you are downloading from torrent sites with that much stuff on your PC. When I was into downloading a few years ago I would leave only leave a few dozen unpopular tracks for leaching in that way I had a much faster downloading speed.

homah_7ft

Isn't this tread supposed to be about going through airports?

Sherifu

Lol @ Canada.

ImDave

Does this remind anyone of the South Park episode "Canada on Strike"?

"Give us some of your internet money!"

RandolphEsq

If I borrow a CD off a 'friend' and copy the songs to iTunes there is nothing wrong with this. If there is something wrong with this, then I can claim that myself and my 'friend' went halves on buying the CD. Unless they ban uploading songs from a CD to your computer than it is impossible to prove the music was illegally acquired

Run_to_da_hills

BrightEyes wrote: »

If I borrow a CD off a 'friend' and copy the songs to iTunes there is nothing wrong with this. If there is something wrong with this, then I can claim that myself and my 'friend' went halves on buying the CD. Unless they ban uploading songs from a CD to your computer than it is impossible to prove the music was illegally acquired

Technically you must have the original copy of the CD and only one additional copy as back up. If you have a copy of this CD on your Ipod, more than likely your mate would also have a copy, I doubt very much that your mate would be stuck with the diskman

I have heard of one DJ that reported several flightcases of his music collection stolen, he got a reciept from the cops to say that he reported the matter. If he was ever quizzed about his MP3 collection on his laptop he could say that he once had the originals but that they were swiped.

weeder

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

In Holland an inspector can walk into a restaurant/coffee shop/club with a pen drive and check the laptop used by the DJ for illegal music in minutes. Maybe a similar method could be implimented to Ipods and MP3 players in the future. Because this whole game is so new and hit them by surprise they have yet to work out a solution and im sure they are working fast on it. They will clamp down on the commercial guys first before they clamp down on the kid with his Ipod.

I am sure my Nokia N95 is well capable of ratting to what ever authority of all my illegal MP3and videos that I have stored on it.

i have to disagree with you,with DRM on every single mp3 legally sold it might be possible but as long as you can buy drm free music such a thing is impossible, there is absolutely no way to tell if a drmless piece of media has been legally purchased or not, and because youcan legally buy drm free music or music from the millions of unsigned artists offereing free downloads all legal and drm free, not to mention the latest nine inch nails album being free and drmless, its jut not possible

JC 2K3

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

In Holland an inspector can walk into a restaurant/coffee shop/club with a pen drive and check the laptop used by the DJ for illegal music in minutes. Maybe a similar method could be implimented to Ipods and MP3 players in the future. Because this whole game is so new and hit them by surprise they have yet to work out a solution and im sure they are working fast on it. They will clamp down on the commercial guys first before they clamp down on the kid with his Ipod.

But how?? Do all music files used by DJs have to be DRM? And can you not see how easy it would be to get around that by storing music in a different format, encryption etc.?

I don't think they'll ever work out a solution for your average consumer, and whatever solution they have for DJs won't be effective.

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I am sure my Nokia N95 is well capable of ratting to what ever authority of all my illegal MP3and videos that I have stored on it.

For that to be the case, there'd have to be a security exploit hardcoded into the firmware on the Nokia N95, and the Gardaí would have to know about it, which would require some sort of Nokia-Irish government conspiracy - and were that the case, you can be assured that someone would have noticed it.

And even if no one had noticed it, and the authorities found a load of people with illegal songs and videos on their wifi cabable mp3 players/phones, it wouldn't stand up as evidence in court. It'd be like Gardaí searching a house without a warrant.

egan007

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

In Holland its a e10'000 fine for playing illegal music commercially.

Commercially being the key word here

Moojuice

What a ridiculous law. You can claim that you own all the cds and have a masive cd collection. Who is goign to carry huge wads of reciepts around with them? They can **** off if they think that this is going to work practically or legally. "What officer? yes I do own all the cd copies at home, what? you want to search my house?, well god luck getting a warrant".

Wertz

I've never paid for a digital music/video file in my life. But that doesn't matter since the only thing worth going to canada for is the weed...

karen3212

there is no way they're going to be able to man the whole Canadian border anyway, they probably wouldn't know exactly where all of it is!

Run_to_da_hills

JC 2K3 wrote: »

But how?? Do all music files used by DJs have to be DRM? And can you not see how easy it would be to get around that by storing music in a different format, encryption etc.?.

It was over three years ago I was chatting to a DJ in a club in Amsterdam, being genuinly interested in the system they had. He said he was registered, Im not sure how they go about it but im sure they have some sort of encryption and a licence sticker on his laptop. Likewise there is a similar system here with all businesses. The BSA (Nothing to do with Motorbikes) have authority to check your company for illegal software. and can drop in at any given moment to check your coroporate computer. Thats why many companies are so strict with employees downloading music, programmes etc and cracking software on their equipment. http://w3.bsa.org/ireland/

JC 2K3 wrote: »

I don't think they'll ever work out a solution for your average consumer, and whatever solution they have for DJs won't be effective.

With the way digital technology advancing so will new ways of policing it will also advance.
When we eventually go for RFID based cash cards every purchace made is accounted for, the authorities could find out is seconds what you have purchased, where and when you got it. If you have an illegal copy of some new DVD video they could tell if you had purchased the orighinal or not through your records.

JC 2K3 wrote: »

For that to be the case, there'd have to be a security exploit hardcoded into the firmware on the Nokia N95, and the Gardaí would have to know about it, which would require some sort of Nokia-Irish government conspiracy - and were that the case, you can be assured that someone would have noticed it. And even if no one had noticed it, and the authorities found a load of people with illegal songs and videos on their wifi cabable mp3 players/phones, it wouldn't stand up as evidence in court. It'd be like Gardaí searching a house without a warrant.

I only mentioned that the technology is availible to scan the contents of your mobile phone, whether they can act on it is a different matter. Maybe new Euro laws could be soon enacted that your force your service provider to disclose information.

weeder

and if you legally purchased a drm free copy of an album there would be zero way for them to tell labels are dying anyway, more and more musicians are turning to the internet for distribution and its getting their careers further and faster, my brother would be a good example


so say hypotethically all the commercial music he has is DRM'ed what if he has a non drm album for personal use, the authoritys have no way of telling wether he played the particluar track in a club

weeder

weeder wrote: »

and if you legally purchased a drm free copy of an album there would be zero way for them to tell labels are dying anyway, more and more musicians are turning to the internet for distribution and its getting their careers further and faster, my brother would be a good example

Who is your brother then?

Hai you guys. Don't insult Canada. They'll only go on strike again. Damn the WGA.

weeder

http://jimicullenmusic.com/
the bottom line being you dont need a label to make a career as a musician nowaday and without teh internets he wouldnt be nearly as popular as he is(which isnt an whole lot i grant you but hes toured the uk and america

trout

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

The BSA (Nothing to do with Motorbikes) have authority to check your company for illegal software. and can drop in at any given moment to check your coroporate computer.

I don't think that's quite true. The BSA are a world wide advisory group, not a regulatory body, and can only instigate legal action on behalf of their members if they have prior proof of piracy. In my experience, this has to come from whistleblowers, awareness from vendors, or organisations discovering their own unwitting piracy, through the use of a self-assesment form (this current form 2006 for some reason ??) linkeh -> http://w3.bsa.org/ireland//antipiracy/Software-Asset-Review.cfm

The BSA mission is awareness and education, not policing.

linkeh -> http://w3.bsa.org/ireland/about/

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

With the way digital technology advancing so will new ways of policing it will also advance.

As will technology that will just bypass DRM. For every DRM equipped media format, you'll have an equivalent format such as Ogg Vorbis.

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

When we eventually go for RFID based cash cards every purchace made is accounted for, the authorities could find out is seconds what you have purchased, where and when you got it. If you have an illegal copy of some new DVD video they could tell if you had purchased the orighinal or not through your records.

Wow. That would be impressive. If the DRM Alliance can bring the music hardware vendors, sales & distribution channels, law enforcement and finance systems together in one cohesive world-wide, real-time solution, that might just work.

DonJose

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Pavee point will be up in arms about this.

LOL good one!!!

Moojuice

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

When we eventually go for RFID based cash cards every purchace made is accounted for, the authorities could find out is seconds what you have purchased, where and when you got it. If you have an illegal copy of some new DVD video they could tell if you had purchased the orighinal or not through your records.

Bollix. You can still buy things with cash and they have no way of tracing or verifying this. There will always be a way to buy stuff without using any form of electronic payment.

trout

Moojuice wrote: »

Bollix. You can still buy things with cash and they have no way of tracing or verifying this. There will always be a way to buy stuff without using any form of electronic payment.

Not to mention swaps, gifts, prizes, freebies ... think of the CD's you get free on the Sunday papers from time to time.

ressem

Not just Canada though.
It's to do with the ACTA proposal (discussion paper available on wikileaks), being discussed by the US and EU also.
http://file.sunshinepress.org:54445/acta-proposal-2007.pdf

which includes gems like...
criminal sanctions in addition to the civil sanctions for

> significant willful infringements without motivation for financial gain to such an extent as to prejudicially affect the copyright owner (e.g. Internet piracy)

and the stuff you've been laughing at

Border measures:
- procedures for rights holders to initiate suspension by customs authorities of import, export and trans-shipment of suspected IPR goods;

Internet distribution and information technology:
...
- procedures enabling right holders who have given effective notification of a claimed infringement to expediciously obtain information identifying the alleged infringer;
- Remedies against circumvention of technological protection measures used by copyright owners and the trafficking of circumvention devices.

Which I'm sure has nothing to do with Article 97 of the consolidated Lisbon treaty.

In the context of the establishment and functioning of the internal market, the European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, shall establish measures for the creation of European intellectual property rights to provide uniform protection of intellectual property rights throughout the Union and for the setting up of centralised Union-wide authorisation, coordination and supervision arrangements.

Mossy Monk

No to Lisbon

Run_to_da_hills

Mossy Monk wrote: »

No to Lisbon

+1
Lisbon = another advancement towards totalitarian control

trout wrote: »

The BSA mission is awareness and education, not policing..

I don't think so, they have an online reporting tool that you can fill out if you suspect a company is using illegal software, They will follow it up. I know of an Internet shop in Co Clare that had a visit about 4 years ago from the BSA, bootleg copyies of Windows along with other software was discovered. The place had to change management. I also know of a PC shop in South Dublin that got a hefty fine over installing illegal copies of windows on new machines. http://w3.bsa.org/ireland/antipiracy/ these guys do follow up complaints.

trout wrote: »

As will technology that will just bypass DRM. For every DRM equipped media format, you'll have an equivalent format such as Ogg Vorbis.

There are heaps of different formats out there, some have their advantages, I would personally stick to the one with the highest bit rate quality. Pioneer have come out with an MP3 compatible CD deck, i.e. CDJ1000 MK3. I have the old MK2 decks that will only play CDs i.e. WAV format. I have no intention of changing as I find the audio quality of WAV far superior than that of MP3. The more you convert audio formats the more you loose quality during the compression process.

trout wrote: »

Wow. That would be impressive. If the DRM Alliance can bring the music hardware vendors, sales & distribution channels, law enforcement and finance systems together in one cohesive world-wide, real-time solution, that might just work.

Yes, everything around the world is becomming intigrated in this digital world at the cost of civil liberties. Just like your new Global compatible RFID based passport that was issued after september 2006.

trout

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I don't think so, they have an online reporting tool that you can fill out if you suspect a company is using illegal software, They will follow it up. I know of an Internet shop in Co Clare that had a visit about 4 years ago from the BSA, bootleg copyies of Windows along with other software was discovered. The place had to change management. I also know of a PC shop in South Dublin that got a hefty fine over installing illegal copies of windows on new machines. http://w3.bsa.org/ireland/antipiracy/ these guys do follow up complaints.

Follow up after the fact is reported, and proven, but they cannot conduct a raid on their own initiative. The few raids that are conducted are carried out by law enforcement agencies, accompanied by BSA reps who have provided proof of piracy.

I used to work with the chairman of the BSA in Ireland. He has told me raids are very much the action of last resort, given the complexity and effort required, as well as the Garda co-operation.

The BSA promote compliance and self-regulation, through awareness not policing.

"BSA educates consumers on software management and copyright protection, cyber security, trade, e-commerce and other Internet-related issues."

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

There are heaps of different formats out there, some have their advantages, I would personally stick to the one with the highest bit rate quality. Pioneer have come out with an MP3 compatible CD deck, i.e. CDJ1000 MK3. I have the old MK2 decks that will only play CDs i.e. WAV format. I have no intention of changing as I find the audio quality of WAV far superior than that of MP3. The more you convert audio formats the more you loose quality during the compression process.

Loss/lossless encoding is a different discussion to DRM/royalty & license free. Converting from one lossy format to another is always going to degrade your end data. FLAC ftw!

For an alternate take on technology and civil liberties ... have a look at EFF -> http://www.eff.org/

JC 2K3

trout wrote: »

FLAC ftw!

Nah, V0(VBR) MP3 is the way to go. FLAC is only suitable for archiving really - unless you're some sort of audio God capable of detecting the tiniest of differences in sound quality (if they are even present).