News

Copyright Lobby Groups Want Canada Back on Piracy Watch List

The IIPA, the umbrella lobby group that represents the major movie, music, and entertainment software lobby groups, released its recommendations for the U.S. piracy watch list last week.  Those that thought passing Bill C-11 – the Canadian copyright reform bill that contained some of the most restrictive digital lock rules in the world – would satisfy U.S. groups will be disappointed. The IIPA wants Canada back on the piracy watch list, one notch below the Special Watch List (where the US placed Canada last year).

Despite the praise for Bill C-11 last year, the groups are right back in criticism mode and demanding reforms. The IIPA is now unsure if the enabler provision will help stop sites that facilitate infringement (despite the fact that its members have yet to use the provision) and concerned with the prospect of new exceptions to the digital lock rules. In fact, its criticisms of the rules for Internet providers (it wants a notice-and-takedown system, tougher rules on search engines that link to infringing content, and new rules to target repeat infringers) are so strong that the organization implausibly claims possible non-compliance with the WIPO Internet treaties.

Moreover, the IIPA wants to undo many of the Bill C-11 changes. It criticizes the new non-commercial caps on statutory damages, the expansion of fair dealing, the non-commercial user generated content provision, the educational exception for publicly available materials on the Internet, and the new exception for temporary copies for technological processes. In other words, the groups are wary of virtually anything designed to provide some balance in the law. There are other targets as well including copyright term extension and more criminal copyright provisions. The Canadian government is unlikely to cave this quickly on copyright, but these demands highlight the pressure that will emerge during the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations and in bi-lateral discussions with the U.S.

26 Comments

  1. A joke right…
    Lol
    I didn’t know we actually came off the list. That is news to me. Come on, Big Content. Throw us a bone here…

  2. I was particularly amused by the comments on the addition of education to the fair dealing categories, especially considering the use educational institutions have made of the more broadly worded fair use provisions in the US. Maybe the US should be going on the watch list too.

  3. Ron MacDonald says:

    The Canadian levy on CD/DVD media should more than compensate them for loses due to Canadian piracy.

  4. Why do we even care?
    Clearly the IIPA are a joke. Does anyone take them seriously?

    Those copyright-nazis are just like spoiled little children and want want want and never give.

    Seriously. They are a joke. Stop even paying attention to them.

  5. Silverwizard says:

    Just as predicted
    Yeah, I am sure everyone saw this coming. Seriously.

  6. Maynard Krebs says:

    Softwood lumber all over again
    a) Complain about “evil” Canadians
    b) Get USTR to lean on Canada
    c) Canada changes rules to appease US
    d) Rinse & repet

  7. Anti-competitive behaviour
    Michael,

    It seems to me a lot of infringement in Canada stems from anti-competitive behaviour by licensees. For example, broadcasters blocking streaming access to content. While they are free to be first in their market, what gives them the right to block or control other markets? For example many networks have boasted about blocking Netflix from licensing content.

    Too often Canadians are blocked from content at ANY price.

    Are these copyright issues exclusively or do anti-competitive practices need to be discussed?

  8. Seriously
    Time to put up a wall at the border crossing Canada and make it illegal to travel to the US for Canadian citizens. Problem solved.

    There’s 10 for ever 1 of us, I wonder whose piracy numbers are greater.

  9. Error #301: List not found.

    The list you tried to reach has been removed, tired everyone out, or has just become irrelevant because everyone finally stopped talking about it. Sorry for any inconvenience.

  10. If these guys, and the people who want to abolish copyright all together, met in the same room they would cancel each other out in endothermic reaction … hmmm maybe a good thing.

  11. Reminds me of famous quote.
    What the IIPA should do is best summarized by this wonderful quote:

    “If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak.”

  12. To Tommy C.
    To Tommy C. the quote you posted is not really a quote but a poem by the Poet Shaun Shane entitled “Tongues Made of Glass” It’s structured like this:
    if only
    our tongues
    were made
    of glass

    how much
    more careful
    we would be
    when we
    speak – Shaun Shane

  13. RE: Tammy
    Thanks Shane. You are doing the world a service by revealing your sock accounts.


  14. Yet another good reason to shrug off the IIPA’s demands: because the thought of people like Shane Shaun having this sort of power is downright insanity.

    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130211/20400521946/bizarre-attribution-troll-bullies-twitter-users-into-compliance-with-baseless-legal-threats.shtml

  15. Roll back to win
    Canada should end this constant bickering by rolling back copyright to what it was a century ago, and leaving it that way for a few years. After the dust settles, there will simply be no point messing with it again. And it would be both a nice poke in the eye to foreigners who want to harm our citizens, and a message to future meddlers that if you mess with Canada, we’ll mess right back. Of course, we’d need a spine for that…

  16. Here’s what I’d do.
    If C-11 is “unsatisfactory” for them, then the obvious solution is to rescind it. We don’t like it either.

  17. One Way Street
    With copyright it’s always a one-way street. Big content will always TELL people they need to give and give, they themselves will never compromise. The problem is that they believe they’re entitled to their revenue, to their business model, to your attention. People consciously choosing to purchase and use less of their content based on their political actions is an idea that’s never crossed their minds.

    “Piracy” could be all but wiped out, and they would still push the same agenda, it’s never their fault. They want you to HAVE to go to them for content. To take a note from Lessig, the thing that scares them most is the idea that you could entertain yourself without involving them.

  18. so?
    So the IIPA (a US lobby group) wants the US to put us on a watch list. Why do we care?

  19. We’ve done this before.
    I would not be at all surprised that the Conservatives had a hand in this to make whatever copyright bill they want to force down our throats look necessary.

  20. Free Trade ? Free for price gouging monopoly behaviour ?
    From the great “competitive” free trade economy, a bit of a joke, given the behaviour of those who get protection in areas like the computer software area.

    It’s heavyweight enforcement of monopoly, with no compromise. See the case in Australia, where Adobe’s charges for software are up to 3 times or more of the price offered in the US, and refuses to allow (under “free trade”) any direct download purchases, and you’d have change left over if flew yourself to the states, bought at US prices, and flew back, after a good night out on the town at a very expensive restaurant.

    This is what we get from “Free Trade” arrangements ?

    Stick to your guns, Canada.

  21. We’ve seen this before
    Let me guess Harper asked to have up put on the list again like he asked to have us put on the list last time so he could have an excuse for his stupid copyright law. Candians will fall for the ploy again hook line and sinker.

    When you pay the Dane Gelt you never get rid of the Dane.

  22. It’s geed and grab
    Copyright was fine as it was. Corporations mandate is to make profits at any cost. That’s what they are set up to do. Make profits and anything else ethical is left to the rest of society to pay. Copyright and Patents are just a worthless paper form of oil and gas.Greed, complete control and profits any cost.

  23. Why am I *NOT* surprised?
    Okay… so our government pushed through (against otherwise unanimous disapproval, but that’s what happens with a majority government) a new law that leaves consumers with absolutely *NO* fair dealing rights for practically any technology made since roughly the turn of this century, and somehow this organization is *still* saying that Canada should be on the “naughty list”?

    For crying out loud… isn’t committing buggery on Canadian consumers enough for them? Even the USA has more freedoms on copyrighted works than we do right now.

    Or is it the fact that the conservatives have stated that “private circumvention” will not be prosecuted that’s bothering them?

  24. Leslie Satenstein says:

    Who is the IIPA and who cares?
    Canadians observe copyright rules, including the rights to fair use. So, what is wrong with that?

    IIPA must recognize that Canadians in thousands wrote the government fighting some rules o IIPA that were excessive. We as a population said NO to IIPA.

  25. More stupid and nonsensical anti-piracy advocates just to p*ss us off
    To sum it up, IIPA, like SOPA, PIPA, the Internet Blacklist Bill, SO ON — they should all just shut their mouths and maybe start being generous, rather than attempting to take from us like the greedy selfish buggers they are!

  26. Sean Ronson says:

    Even after spending millions on advertising about piracy, the number of people who actually have any concern for these people’s lost income seems to be them and those they pay to lobby and represent them. It is a loser political issue, and frankly all the laws are undemocratic. As for this list, since we don’t want to live in a police stat – its better to be on their list