Dumbshit Dept.

Proof that media company's lobbying efforts have gone too far

The Canadians are thinking of taking the trend of border patrol insanity one step further. As if the security theater isn't enough to make people shy away from traveling, the normally level headed Canadians want to have border agents check your iPod for illegal content!

WHAT?? Seriously, they are proposing to inspect people's iPods for infringing content. I keep checking the date, but sadly its not April 1. I can't begin to fathom the problems associated with this:

• Massive travel delays -- How long is a border agent going to spend inspecting someone's 160GB iPod with 40k songs on it?
• Different countries -- What if you and your iPod come from a country where you can legally copy music off the internet and into your iPod? Isn't that/wasn't that legal in Canada?? Are border agents supposed to be in tune with all the IP laws from all of the countries?
• Border agents are unsuited for this task -- How the hell are you going to train the bonehead inspectors to even have passing chance at doing this job right? The things they are asking of border agents require not only technical knowledge (imagine the horror of these idiots having to use all sorts of music players, not just iPods!) but also IP knowledge form all around the world.
• Invasion of privacy -- Well, privacy has been lost a long time ago.

This is the most asinine proposal I've ever heard. This proposal is not based in any sort of reality -- can you imagine the damage it will cause to Canada's tourism? And the amount of tax money spent to enforce this? The money spent on this program and the damages from this program would dwarf the entire media industry in Canada. Save a broken incumbent industry by lining their pockets with tax dollars -- very clever for the media companies. Too bad it has far reaching and serious implications for the whole country.

Media company lobbyists need to be shot. Plain and simple -- seriously, who thinks up this shit? I'm confident this proposal won't go anywhere, but its really embarrassing for Canada that this proposal ever made it into the public light.

Posted by Mayhem at May 28, 2008 01:43 PM