C-61: Making digital paperweights out of content you’ve paid for

There is a major confusion in the media about C-61 and they don’t understand the core problem. The issue is not about people downloading music it’s about the anti-circumvention provisions which make it illegal to break the digital rights management (Britannica - Wikipedia) which prevents you from copying music and in some schemes requires your computer to “phone home” to an server from whoever you bought the music from before it will play.

Imagine if iTunes closed up shop suddenly. Most of the tunes you’ve paid for would suddenly become digital paperweights - with no server to verify that the content is legal it won’t play.

Providers have held consumers in the dark in the past. Google discontinued it’s video store leaving millions of videos they sold unable to be played (they did sort of offer partial refunds to people who bought their content.) Major League Baseball changed the format they sell videos in rendering all previously sold content useless. No refunds. Microsoft discontinued some of their phone home servers too so if you changed computers suddenly the music collection that you’ve paid good money for is also worthless.

C-61 would make it illegal to break the DRM on content that you’ve paid for but can no longer enjoy. Who is the real criminal here? It’s not Canadians.