Month: July 2008

WALL-E, copyright criminal.

I just saw Pixar/Disney’s WALL·E.

What a sweet and wonderful film!

The theatre was full of kids, many of whom were absolutely terrified when it looked like WALL-E might die.

Have a listen to the director, Andrew Stanton, talk to reporters about his movie |MP3|. Stanton makes no bones about this being an homage to many of his favorite flicks. And it’s true, there are so many SF references in it. At one point Stanton even says ‘I wanted this to be “R2D2 the movie.”‘ I think he really nailed that.

But the really sad part, the part none of those young kids in the theatre knew, the truly despicable part, is that poor Wall-E would be deemed a dirty copyright criminal under Canada’s new copyright law. Bill C-61 would criminalize much of Wally’s behavior in the film. Now that’s something to really cry about!

Here’s the evidence against WALL-E documented in the movie (**SPOILER WARNING**):

1. WALL-E records audio from his favorite movie, Hello Dolly, putting in onto his own digital recorder (bypassing the macrovision DRM on the tape). A COPYRIGHT CRIME UNDER C-61

2. WALL-E archives the audio, he doesn’t merely time-shift it. He listens repeatedly! A COPYRIGHT CRIME UNDER C-61

3. WALL-E shares his DRM-broken music with his friend, another robot named EVE. A COPYRIGHT CRIME UNDER C-61

4. WALL-E watches Hello Dolly on multiple evenings, on the screen of an iPod. Hello Dolly is not available through the iTunes store, therefore he broke the videocassette DRM when he platform shifted it. A COPYRIGHT CRIME UNDER C-61

If for no other reason than to save the poor tear-drop eyed robot from being destroyed we should stop Bill C-61!

Posted by Jesse Willis

UPDATE: Here’s a terrific interview with with MP Charlie Angus (the NDP parliamentary critic on digital issues) – it mentions this post and lots of other great points about the utter terribleness of C-61.|MP3|

UPDATE: This post, or at least the graphic made for it, will be used by Marcia Wilbur, in a talk called “A Decade Under the DMCA,” which will be presented at The Last Hope which is a long-running hacker conference in New York on Sunday July 20th!

UPDATE: Here’s the Power Point Presentation by Marcia Wilbur, as was used in her presentation at the Last Hope hacker conference in New York on Sunday July 20th 2008. It covers the fallout of 10 years of the USA’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (which is the US equivilent of Bill C-61) |POWERPOINT PRESENTATION|