Michael Geist

One of the more interesting exchanges during Wednesday’s C-32 Legislative Committee hearing involved questions on the bill’s reforms to statutory damages. The bill proposes to establish a maximum statutory damages penalty of $5,000 for infringement that the court considers to be non-commercial.  That contrasts with commercial infringement, which carries a $20,000 per infringement maximum.  Note that the minimums are roughly the same – non-commercial infringement has a $100 minimum, while commercial infringement’s minimum is $200.

Liberal MP Dan McTeague questioned the change, suggesting that it could send the wrong message about infringement and be viewed as a licence to steal.  I disagreed with his position, pointing out that $5,000 was still enormous cost for most Canadians and that it is potential multi-million dollar liability for non-commercial file sharing that sends a bad message about Canadian justice. 

I also made the point that statutory damages are relatively rare on the international scene, a point that I think is worth expanding upon.  Perhaps because both Canada and the U.S. have statutory damages, many MPs might be under the mistaken impression that most countries have them. In fact, the opposite is the case. 

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