Post Tagged with: "mpaa"

The MPAA’s Secret Lobby Campaign on Bill C-11 and a Canadian SOPA

Over the past few years, the Motion Picture Association – Canada, the Canadian arm of the MPAA, has recorded nearly 100 meetings with government ministers, MPs, and senior officials. While their lobbying effort will not come as a surprise, last October there were several meetings that fell outside the norm. On October 18, 2011, MPA-Canada reports meeting with Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore, Foreign Minister John Baird, and Industry Canada Senior Associate Deputy Minister Simon Kennedy, all on the same day. These meetings occured less than three weeks after the introduction of Bill C-11 and the decision to sign ACTA, and only eight days before SOPA was launched in the U.S.

To get a sense of how rare these meeting were, this is the only registered meeting John Baird has had on intellectual property since Bill C-11 was introduced and ACTA was signed by Canada. Similarly, since the introduction of Bill C-11, James Moore has only two intellectual property meetings listed – this one with MPA-Canada and one in March 2012 with the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (in fact, Moore had only three meetings on intellectual property in all of 2011. Those meetings were with MPA-Canada, the Canadian Recording Industry Association, and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce). Even the Simon Kennedy meeting was a rarity as he has had multiple meetings with pharmaceutical companies, but only two (MPA-Canada and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives) that appear to have included copyright.

Given how unusual it is for a single lobby group to gain access to two of Canada’s leading cabinet ministers and a senior department official on the same day, it begs the question of how they did it.

June 14, 2012 — 46 comments — News

MPAA: ACTA Must Include Internet Provisions

MPAA Chair Dan Glickman appeared before a Congressional committee last week and left little doubt that ACTA is all about the Internet and copyright provisions. According to Glickman: We firmly believe that for the ACTA to address the enforcement challenges our industry confronts today, it MUST include robust protections for […]

December 16, 2009 — 9 comments — News

MPAA on ACTA

"Outcries on the lack of transparency in the ACTA negotiations are a distraction."

November 20, 2009 — 6 comments — News

Is The MPAA Serious About Enforcing Its Copyrights in Canada?

The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association (and its parent MPAA), which represents the major Hollywood studios, is one of the leading voices for DMCA-style legislation. It is also one of the most effective Canadian lobby groups as evidenced by the amazing speed with which it convinced Canada to become one of the only countries in the world to enact specific anti-camcording legislation (what made it particularly remarkable was that Canadian officials believed for months that the law already addressed the issue and the industry did little more than provide wildly inconsistent statistics and threaten to withhold some film screenings).

Interestingly, while the CMPDA claims that it needs stronger enforcement powers in Canada, David Allsebrook, a top IP lawyer with LudlowLaw, points out in his forthcoming submission to the copyright consultation that the industry has seemingly little interest in pursuing criminal copyright cases in Canada. Allsebrook highlights the fact that the movie industry does not appear to regularly register its own films with CIPO. Although registration is not required under the law, it is pretty standard if one anticipates possible enforcement action. As Allsebrook notes:

The MPAA is trying to manoeuvre Canada and all other countries into enforcing its members’ rights for them, at the countries’ expense. MPAA members have no intention of seeking criminal prosecution for copyright infringement of their movies in Canada. The MPAA’s strategy can be simply demonstrated. In order to prove criminal copyright infringement in Canada, the first step is to file in evidence a Canadian copyright registration, because it substitutes for expensive witnesses as proof of the existence and ownership of copyright, unless there is a reason to question its veracity. However to be admissible the copyright must have been registered in Canada before the infringement took place. The ten top-grossing movies of 2009, as of the end of july, were all produced by members of the MPAA. Only three of the ten movies’ copyrights were registered in Canada by that time. The registration fee is $50.00, and registration may be done very simply, and online, from anywhere in the world.

The lack of registration is particularly telling since the MPAA believes that 90 percent of its piracy comes from copies of movies made by videotaping a showing of the movie in a cinema. The most damaging piracy takes place at the beginning of the film’s release, when the infringing copies can circulate around the world electronically long before the film is exhibited or authorized copies released internationally. The MPAA members have not taken the most basic step towards stopping this activity in Canadian Courts.

I conducted a similar review of the top 10 grossing U.S. films as of last week. At the moment, only half have Canadian copyright registrations.

August 14, 2009 — 12 comments — News

The MPAA on How to Camcord

The U.S. Copyright Office is conducting hearings on the exemptions under the DMCA (they do this every three years) and Rebecca Tushnet has been providing detailed coverage. A full day was devoted to the issue of an exemption for teachers and students so that they could circumvent the locks on […]

May 8, 2009 — 5 comments — News