The Canadian Copyright bill was passed yesterday, a bill that demands a little adjustment to our day to day life. Till now, no one cared who is using our internet connection or what are the files being downloaded or uploaded using it. No one cared of your unscrambled satellite videos from across the border. However that’s all changing even though you may not want it that way. I guess no one can withstand the pressure of the “big guys” for too long.
According to the law, for each piece of copyrighted material that you bring to your property illegally, you are paying a minimum of $500; which may go up to a maximum of $20,000 depending on what you do with it after you acquire it in your property. Definition of property includes, but not limited to, computers, video cassettes, USB sticks, and cable and satellite receivers.
Discussions are all over the media regarding the law; however our teenagers may not pay much attention to it. It’s very important that they know what they are doing from the basement with the internet you have. If they download an illegal copy of a music file, you as the owner of the internet may be liable to pay a minimum fine of $500. If they end up sharing that same file with others, you might end up paying $20,000.
How are they (the law enforcement) going to know about it? Every internet connection comes with an IP address assigned by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). It’s just the question of how long law enforcement would take to find out the the user of the IP address from the ISP.
So what if I use someone else’s open internet connection? It may affect both the owner of the connection as well as the person who used the connection. The person who used the connection can be found using the MAC address of the machine that used the connection.
It doesn’t take long for you to receive an “internet ticket” for illegal use of the internet or sharing it!