This Canadian article comes from Canada.com, not exactly known to be a wacky, ideologue or rogue site.

If its words are true, how long will the effects take to reach the US and the entire western world?

The writer says: The federal government is secretly negotiating an agreement to revamp international copyright laws which could make the information on Canadian iPods, laptop computers or other personal electronic devices illegal and greatly increase the difficulty of travelling with such devices.

The deal could also impose strict regulations on Internet service providers, forcing those companies to hand over customer information without a court order.

Called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the new plan would see Canada join other countries, including the United States and members of the European Union, to form an international coalition against copyright infringement.

I was always taught about the fair use doctrine in terms of intellectual property.  In other words, if I pay for something, I can use it any way I like as long as I don't resell it for profit.  In other words, if I buy a CD, according to fair use, I can most certainly burn a copy to my Ipod, burn a copy to maybe play at the beach or the yard in case I don't want to endanger the original, and even burn a copy for my brother to listen to.

Copyright lawyers out there?  Am I correct?

As a creative artist myself, I fully expect that users can, if they wish, copy parts or all of my stories for things like sharing with friends or using in their classes.  They just can't sell those stories for profit.

These restrictive intellectual property laws seem out of place with a world that is slowly embracing the creative commons license.  Google or wikipedia:  creative commons.

Sci fi author Cory Doctorow has released his new YA novel Little Brother both in book stores and as a free download on his site.  I have the pdf file right here.

As always we must ask: who benefits?  Clearly not the small singer songwriter or the unknown fiction writer (moi) or even the modestly known artist.  Those people, experience has shown, actually benefit from giving their work away free on the net, at least to some degree.

Who benefits then are the conglomerates who own record companies and book publishers.  They stand to lose enormous profits.  And they are panicked as the traditional business model of the record industry is collapsing in front of them.

Ultimately, I have no worries about laws such as this.  If it does come to pass, which I doubt, it won't work.  The law cannot keep track with evolving technologies such as bit torrent (or its successor).  Plus, if users can't freely trade mainstream recording artists, they simply will turn elsewhere for their material.  The situation is analagous to what happened to the "big networks" when cable came around.  They went into freefall, and have never truly recovered.

The music biz as we knew it is over.  Let's be excited about what is next.