The CBC reports on a new study from Bank of America Merrill Lynch has an eye-opening rankings for Canada’s major wireless providers. The report finds that the Big 3 of Bell, Rogers, and Telus control 95% of the market, have the highest profit margin in the developed world and the […]
Post Tagged with: "canada"
Canada at the ACTA Negotiations: Canadian Proposals in the Current Draft
Piracy Haven Label Case of Rhetoric Over Reality
In the wake of recent reports exposing the activities of former MP Rahim Jaffer, lobbying has been the talk of Ottawa for the past month. The incident has had an immediate impact on lobbying regulations, with the Conservatives and Liberals jostling over who can introduce tougher disclosure measures. The changes may plug a few loopholes, yet the reality is that lobbying efforts are not always the subject of secretive meetings with high-level officials.
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) considers the intensive lobbying effort on promised intellectual property reform. In recent weeks, those efforts have escalated dramatically, with most activities taking place in plain view. Scarcely a week goes by without a major event occurring – last week it was a reception sponsored by the Canadian Private Copying Collective, the week before an event hosted by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, and the week before that the Juno Awards attended by several cabinet ministers and MPs.
Even more open is the public campaign designed to persuade Canadians that their country is a piracy haven. Late last month, the IFPI, which represents the global recording industry, released its annual Recording Industry in Numbers report that tracks global record sales. The report targeted two countries – Canada and Spain – for declining sales and linked those declines to copyright law. Not coincidentally, both countries are currently working on legal reforms.
European Parliament Passes Resolution Calling on Canada To Support Moving ACTA to WIPO
With the Canada – European Union summit underway this week, the European Parliament has just passed a resolution that calls on Canada to support even greater ACTA transparency and to shift the negotiations to an international organization such as WIPO. The full paragraph within the resolution states that the European […]
USTR’s Bully Report Unfairly Blames Canada Again
The U.S. government has released its annual Special 301 report in which it purports to identify those countries with inadequate intellectual property laws. Given the recent history and the way in which the list is developed, it will come as no surprise that the U.S. is again implausibly claiming that Canada is among the worst of the worst. As a starting point, it should be noted that the Canadian government does not take this exercise particularly seriously. As an official with the Department of Foreign Affairs once told a House of Commons committee:
In regard to the watch list, Canada does not recognize the 301 watch list process. It basically lacks reliable and objective analysis. It's driven entirely by U.S. industry. We have repeatedly raised this issue of the lack of objective analysis in the 301 watch list process with our U.S. counterparts.
This year's report is particularly embarrassing for the U.S. since it not only lacks in credible data, but ignores the submission from CCIA (which represents some of the world's largest technology and Internet companies including Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Fujitsu, AMD, eBay, Intuit, Oracle, and Yahoo) that argued that it is completely inappropriate to place Canada on the list. The technology giants reminded the USTR that "Canada’s current copyright law and practice clearly satisfy the statutory 'adequate and effective' standard. Indeed, in a number respects, Canada's laws are more protective of creators than those of the United States."
With respect to the actual data, the USTR report is largely rhetoric rather than reality. The reality is:
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