Several groups, led by the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, held a press conference yesterday to trumpet concerns associated with counterfeiting. The article notes that the RCMP will no longer commit to a specific counterfeiting figure, but believes that the cost is in the billions.
Canadian Heritage Memorandum, December 8, 2020, ATIP A-2020-00498
Bill C-10
Is ACTA the New WIPO?
It has been readily apparent for a number of months now that "counterfeiting and piracy" is the new focal point for intellectual property policy reform. With global conferences, legislative hearings in national capitals, and new anti-counterfeiting coalitions, copyright lobby groups have jumped on the anti-counterfeiting bandwagon. While the claims regularly […]
Ministers Respond to Industry Committee Counterfeiting Report
Four government ministers – Day (Public Safety), Prentice (Industry), Emerson (International Trade), and Nicholson (Justice) – have issued their response to last spring's Industry Committee counterfeiting report that included 19 recommendations for reform including stronger penalties, WIPO ratification, and increased border enforcement. The letter, which interestingly does include Canadian Heritage Minister Josee Verner, avoids addressing each specific recommendation as the Committee requested, choosing instead to offer some general words of support for anti-counterfeiting measures.
The letter rightly focuses first on concerns associated with health and safety. The letter continues by noting that the Government's first step in its IPR strategy has already been taken with the passage of last spring's anti-camcording legislation. Moreover, it adds that there is ongoing inter-departmental work on strengthening IP enforcement.
Looking ahead, the letter again confirms that the DMCA is headed to Canada, stating that:
Liberal MP McTeague Pushing New IP and Anti-Counterfeiting Caucus
As MPs prepare for a new Parliamentary session next week, sources indicate that Liberal MP Dan McTeague is promoting a new IP and Anti-Counterfeiting Caucus. In a letter to MPs, McTeague points to the recent Committee reports on counterfeiting and argues that: From the findings of these reports and from […]
Misleading RCMP Data Undermines Counterfeiting Claims
My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) focuses on the growing attention paid to counterfeiting and the use of misleading data as part of the debate. The RCMP has been the single most prominent source for claims about the impact of counterfeiting in Canada since its 2005 Economic Crime Report pegged the counterfeiting cost at between $10 to 30 billion dollars annually. The $30 billion figure has assumed a life of its own with groups lobbying for tougher anti-counterfeiting measures regularly raising it as evidence of the dire need for Canadian action. U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins cited the figure in a March 2007 speech critical of Canadian law, while the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, Canada's leading anti-counterfeiting lobby, reported in April that the "RCMP estimates that the cost to the Canadian economy from counterfeiting and piracy is in the billions."
Yet despite the reliance on this figure – the Industry Committee referenced it in its final report – a closer examination reveals that the RCMP data is fatally flawed. Responding to an Access to Information Act request for the sources behind the $30 billion claim, Canada's national police force last week admitted that the figures were based on "open source documents found on the Internet." In other words, the RCMP did not conduct any independent research on the scope or impact of counterfeiting in Canada, but rather merely searched for news stories on the Internet and then stood silent while lobby groups trumpeted the figure before Parliament.
A careful examination of the documents relied upon by the RCMP reveal two sources in particular that appear responsible for the $30 billion claim.
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