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Senator Applauds Pirate Bay Trial, Chides Canada

Posted by timothy on from the speaking-metaphorically-of-course dept.

eldavojohn writes "Republican Senator Orrin Hatch spoke Tuesday at the World Copyright Summit in Washington DC and hailed the Pirate Bay guilty verdict as an important victory. He expressed severe disappointment in Canada for showing up on our watch list for piracy next to China and Russia. Senator Hatch also said, 'In fact, one study reports that each year, copyright piracy from motion pictures, sound recordings, business and entertainment software, and video games costs the US economy $58 billion in total output, costs American workers 373,375 jobs and $16.3 billion in earnings, and costs federal, state, and local governments $2.6 billion in tax revenue. During this time of economic turmoil, we must ensure that all copyrighted works, both here and abroad, are protected from online theft and traditional physical piracy. After all, US copyright-based industries continue to be one of America's largest and fastest-growing economic sectors.' GamePolitics notes that for his 2006 campaign, Hatch was rented for $7,000 by the RIAA and also got on his knees for $12,640 from the MPAA."

14 of 526 comments (clear)

  1. Blame Canada by oldspewey · · Score: 5, Informative

    I suppose it would be a waste of time to explain to this genius that the "problem" of file sharing in Canada is largely a myth and has been discredited.

    --
    If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
    1. Re:Blame Canada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I suppose it would be a waste of time to explain to this genius that the "problem" of file sharing in Canada is largely a myth [canada.com] and has been discredited [www.cbc.ca].

      For anyone too lazy to read the helpful link provided by the parent, basically it boils down that they didn't do any actual measurements in Canada, they extrapolated based on what their (flawed) statistical model indicated should be their projected piracy rates.

      There is no evidence (real or otherwise) that piracy in Canada happens at anywhere near the rate they pulled out of their backsides.

  2. Re:$58 billion? by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Where exactly did he get his numbers? I wonder?

    I believe he was citing the Business Software Alliance's annual report on piracy. Although that value I believe is for world-wide losses, not American.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  3. Re:Well... by Divebus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh, that's nothing. Think how much money this "Fair Use" nonsense has cost the industry.

    --

    Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
  4. As always follow the money....... by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 5, Informative

    Orrin Hatch has taken over $96,000 From the TV/Movies/Music lobby already.

  5. Addendum by TropicalCoder · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just a snippet from the blog cited above...

    ...it would be worth reminding U.S. officials that Canada is compliant with its international copyright obligations. In recent years, it responded to U.S. pressure by becoming one of the few countries to enact anti-camcording legislation. The RCMP has prioritized intellectual property cases and the law contains tough statutory damages provisions that are regularly used by rights holders to obtain significant judgments. In fact, some of Canada's copyright rules are more restrictive than those found south of the border.

    Moreover, grouping Canada together with high-piracy nations does not stand up to even mild scrutiny. The Business Software Alliance's 2008 statistics show that among the eleven other countries on this year's Priority Watch List for which data is available, the lowest rate of software piracy is 66 percent. By comparison, Canada stands at 32 percent, not remotely close to any other country on the list. In fact, Canada's software piracy rate is lower than all 46 countries named in the Special 301 report.

    Similarly, 2008 data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency on intellectual property seizures reports that Taiwan and South Korea rank fourth and fifth as sources of seized goods (China is number one), yet both were dropped this year from the Watch List. By comparison, Canada does not even appear in the rankings.

    [Canadian] Officials should not sit idly by as the U.S. unfairly tarnishes Canada's reputation.

  6. The made up statistics of the BSA by TropicalCoder · · Score: 5, Informative

    From Prof. Michael Geist's blog BSA Admits Canadian Software Piracy Rates Estimated; Canada Viewed as Low Piracy Country, the following shows that these statistics are just made up...

    This year the BSA reported that Canada declined from 33 to 32 percent. Michael Murphy, chair of the BSA Canada Committee claimed that "despite the slight decline, Canada's software piracy rate is nowhere near where it should be compared to other advanced economy countries. We stand a better chance of reducing it significantly with stronger copyright legislation that strikes the appropriate balance between the rights of consumers and copyright holders."

    Yet what the BSA did not disclose is that the 2009 report on Canada were guesses since Canadian firms and users were not surveyed. While the study makes seemingly authoritative claims about the state of Canadian piracy, the reality is that IDC, which conducts the study for BSA, did not bother to survey in Canada.

    1. Re:The made up statistics of the BSA by twidarkling · · Score: 4, Informative

      *facepalm*

      "We're just going to completely make shit up, 'cause we can't be bothered to survey Canada. They're just like the US, right? We'll just use the numbers from the US, adjusted for population, and how backwards they are compared to us."

      --
      Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
  7. Re:It often is a loss, and here's why by grepya · · Score: 4, Informative

    In other news, unchecked air-breathing by the earth's entire population costs governments trillions of dollars of lost revenue, billions of air-accounting jobs and millions of death by old age.
      The free availability of air to anyone with the simple capability to just *SUCK IT IN* willy-nilly skews the whole thing wildly. We don't know what people would do if wanton free-for-all air-breathing weren't an option. It very well might be possible that the accounting and sale of air (by the gallons) would create huge revenues for government and private businesses. Again, we don't know because people can just... you know... inhale and exhale at will.

  8. Re:Some things the Senator needs to understand. by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some things the Senator needs to understand ...

    Might I remind you that this is the same Senator Orrin Hatch who

    Combine those first two points and I wager that your comment not only falls upon deaf ears but might instead cause him to laugh. This guy's got a long history and he's been very successful doing it.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  9. Re:Not a Loss by twidarkling · · Score: 5, Informative

    So if Terminator 4 was downloaded 1million times in the US, one could say that it cost the $18million ($18 for the DVD) plus the government $1,260,000 in taxes (assuming 7% taxes).

    Okay, I *saw* terminator 4 in theatres, and lemme tell you, it was NOT worth the price. If a friend hadn't bought my ticket, I wouldn't have watched it. But to my friend, it was worth the price because we were seeing it together. That's the difference. He was getting a value out of it separate to the value of the movie.

    To me, the best pro-piracy argument is it allows people to not reward people for making shit products. If piracy wasn't available, I'd have to pay $60 to find out that new game is absolute ass-nuggets, I'd have to pay at least $10 to see a movie in the theatres to know it was crap, not including travel time, waiting time, concessions, etc. Why should someone benefit from my enforced inability to check the quality of their product before I shell out full price? You can't tell me you've never watched a movie, or played a game, or bought a book, or *something* that made you go, afterwards, "fuck, that was a waste of $X. I wish I had that back."

    --
    Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
  10. Re:OK republican shills by Sj0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    HOLD IT.

    President Bush signed TARP, the largest of the bailouts into law, long before the election.

    How is that Obama's fault?

    --
    It's been a long time.
  11. Re:Well... by Sj0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    In Canada they did that.

    Which is why this is having such a hard time making file sharing illegal.

    And as for the politicians....Do you want to be the guy to say "Good news everyone, we're making it so the music industry can sue you for millions!"

    --
    It's been a long time.
  12. Re:OK republican shills by Curtman · · Score: 5, Informative

    He expressed severe disappointment in Canada for showing up on our watch list for piracy next to China and Russia.

    Well we express severe disappointment in the U.S. for showing up on our watch list for nations that are known to use torture along with Israel, China, Iran and Afghanistan.