DRM News

Today the United States Trade Representative released its annual ‘Special 301’ report. This is a report that basically says how bad other countries are and how they are being mean to the United States. What makes the whole ‘Special 301’ report pretty meaningless is that for years the USTR has listened only to the industries who are complaining about how mean other countries are to the wholesome US media conglomerates. The USTR has finally opened the doors to allow more access to them, but then they pretty much ignored everybody but the industry anyway. This includes the CCIA, which sent in its own report to the USTR saying how Canada should not be on the list. The CCIA includes such companies as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, AMD, T-Mobile, ebay.

Canada, again, is on the ‘Priority Watch List’, which means that Canada has been a very bad boy indeed! Rampant piracy, loss of sales, children and dogs running amok! Oh the humanity!

That’s the view the viewpoint the industry wants you to have, the reality is something completely different. Dr. Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law notes that;

• • According to the software industry’s own piracy numbers, Canada rate is declining and is dramatically lower than any other country on the priority watch list.  Moreover, even the Business Software Alliance has characterized Canada as a “low piracy country.”
  • According the recording industry’s own numbers, the Canadian recording industry did not decline last year as badly as the U.S. or Japan and it ranked well ahead of the global average for digital music sales growth.
  • According to the motion picture industry, illegal camcording has declined rapidly in Canada in recent years.  Canada is one of the only countries in the world with criminal convictions for such activities.
  • Last year Canada amended its Proceeds of Crime regulations by removing the Copyright Act from the list.  The change had been requested by copyright lobby groups.
  • Canada is often characterized as a prominent home for BitTorrent sites, yet there are more sites hosted in European countries such as the Netherlands but it is not included on the list.
  • Canada is the only participant in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement to be named to the Priority Watch List.  Apparently, our involvement in those talks counts for little.
  • Comparative analysis of U.S. and Canadian copyright law identifies numerous areas where Canada’s copyright laws are stronger than those found in the U.S.
  • The RCMP has prioritized intellectual property enforcement and conducted thousands of investigations in recent years.
  • Canadian enforcement measures include a host of other provisions that are not found in many countries that do not make the USTR list, such as statutory damages and anti-camcording rules.

So why is Canada on this list? Well according to the ‘Special 301’ report.

Canada has not completed the legislative reforms in the copyright area that are necessary to deliver on its commitments. The United States urges Canada to enact legislation in the near term to update its copyright laws and address the challenge of Internet piracy. Canada should fully implement the WIPO Internet Treaties, which Canada signed in 1997. Canada’s weak enforcement of intellectual property rights is also of concern, and the United States continues to encourage Canada to improve its IPR enforcement system to provide for deterrent sentences and stronger enforcement powers. In particular, border enforcement continues to be weak. The United States encourages Canada to provide its border officials with the authority to seize suspected infringing materials without the need for a court order. The United States will continue to follow Canada’s progress toward implementing an adequate and effective IPR protection and enforcement regime, including its progress on actions to address Internet piracy and improve border enforcement.

If you read Dr. Geist’s above points, then read the reasons that Canada is on this list, you’d think it was two totally different countries. To point out another bit of idiocy on placing Canada on the list is the IFPA (the global RIAA) attacked Canada, yet in its own report Canada is doing far better than the US is doing. Again Dr. Geist is here to set them straight.

Yet it doesn’t take much digging to see that the IFPI targeted the wrong country. Canadian sales declined by 7.4 percent last year.  That is obviously bad news for the industry, but it is almost identical to the global average of 7.2 percent.  In other words, far from a piracy outlier, Canada was actually consistent with declines around the world.  Moreover, while the IFPI chose to target Canada, the reality is the declines were far bigger in the United States (10.7 percent) and Japan (10.8 percent) yet neither country is described as a piracy haven. The IFPI data also shows that Canada was ahead of the curve on digital music sales growth. Canadian digital sales grew by 38 percent last year, while globally the number was 9.2 percent (the U.S. grew at 8 percent, below the global average).
Of course, none of these data points helped advance the agenda of painting Canada as a piracy haven, so they are conveniently ignored.

You may be thinking that Canada must be going crazy to be put on the list, or rushing to appease the RIAA, MPAA, ESA, and other US industry groups and bowing down to the USTR to make sure that Canada is still ok in the eyes of the US. Meh, not so much.

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.