Blame it on Canada - Fair Use becomes DRM

Since 1997 Canada has had a unique legal approach to Music and Movie copyrights. Called the Copyright Act, the law allows Canadians to do whatever they want with the content they possess. Possession is ownership so it does not matter where you obtained the material. Sound illegal? Well its not. In fact at the time it was considered a 'win' for the media sellers because rather than tax the content the law tases, or places a 'levy', on the blank media that people used to use for recording their content. Also known as a 'private copying levy'. Not being imagineers of technology, at the time corporations never imagined a time when content would all be digitally stored on devices rather than blank media. Once agian their attempts to control the content was 'locked-into' a single technology... analog tape. 

Well now they are fighting back. The Canadian Copyright Act is facing its own closing credits. According to the Canadian Press article, we are part of the problem:

Exacerbating the situation is intense pressure from the United States,

where Canada is considered a rogue when it comes to copyright and

intellectual property. It still hasn't ratified a 1997 World Intellectual

Property Organization copyright treaty.

Personnally I would rather pay a private copying levy on the media playing and storing devices I purchase than on the content I want to distribute through my life. Pay for the privilege but own the distribution I say. Leave the innovation killing DRM out of the model and let me choose what works for me.