Information wants to be free...

The Harper government introduced Bill C-61 today. It's the long threatened copyright amendments Bill. CBC news has coverage here.

Money quote:

"People caught downloading music or video files illegally could also be sued for a maximum of $500, but uploading a file to a peer-to-peer network or YouTube could result in lawsuits of $20,000 per file."

Michael Geist, University of Ottawa prof, and noted critic of the government's Bill C-61, has a good analysis of the Bill here. According to Mr. Geist looking at the controversial American DMCA copyright law versus Canadian Bill C-61 he says that 

"The digital lock provisions are worse than the DMCA. Yes - worse."

There is a full version of BIll C-61 available here.