Post Tagged with: "piracy"

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Government-Backed Study Finds Piracy Fight a Low Priority for Canadian Rights Holders

The Canadian government plans to review the state of copyright law next year, but a recent government-commissioned study indicates that fighting piracy is a low priority for rights holders. They prefer to focus on their efforts on generating revenues from legitimate websites and services.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that piracy is likely to be a major issue in the 2017 review, with some groups sure to demand legislative reforms and increased resources for law enforcement initiatives. Canada enacted several anti-piracy measures in 2012, including creating a new rule that makes it easier for rights holders to sue websites or services that “enable” copyright infringement. The so-called enabler provision – the first of its kind anywhere in the world – has been used to shut down Canadian-based piracy sites.

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August 8, 2016 6 comments Columns

“Piracy is the New Radio”

Canadian superstar Neil Young on piracy: It doesn’t affect me because I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. […] Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around. […] That’s the radio. If you really want to hear it, let’s […]

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February 2, 2012 3 comments News

Meganomics

Joe Karaganis has a must-read post on the piracy figures involving Megaupload, as he persuasively argues that the profitability of piracy on cloud storage sites is massively overstated.

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January 24, 2012 1 comment News

“Canada’s Piracy Rate is at an All Time Low”

The Business Software Alliance released its annual Global Piracy Study yesterday and while the study is oft-criticized on methodological grounds (Glyn Moody, my 2009 criticisms that revealed no actual surveys in Canada that year), the trend is unmistakable. According to this annual study, Canada’s piracy rate has been on a steady decline as Michael Murphy, Chairman of the BSA Canada Committee, notes “at 28 per cent, Canada’s piracy rate is at an all time low, dropping six percentage points since 2006.”

The Toronto Star runs a story on the release, complete a graphic showing Canada among the 15 lowest piracy countries in the world. Canada’s is well below the Western European average and well below the other countries on the USTR Special 301 Watch list. While the BSA notes an increase in the dollar amount, this is due almost entirely to currency fluctuations given the stronger Canadian dollar. Moreover, Joe Karaganis highlights the fact that the BSA says the top source of “software piracy” is not unauthorized versions of software but rather “overinstallation” – the installation of legal, authorized software on more than one computer.

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May 13, 2011 12 comments News

The Truth About Pirates and Profits: A Market Failure, Not Legal One

Trademark and copyright holders frequently characterize piracy as a legal failure, arguing that tougher laws and increased enforcement are needed to stem infringing activity. But my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that a new global study on piracy, backed by Canada’s International Development Research Centre, comes to a different conclusion. Following several years of independent investigation in six emerging economies, the report concludes that piracy is chiefly a product of a market failure, not a legal one.

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March 22, 2011 17 comments Columns