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Tech Companies Say Don't Blame Canada For Copyright Problems

Posted by timothy on from the except-for-those-rowdy-ottowans dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Computer & Communications Industry Association, which includes a who's-who of the tech world, including Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Fujitsu, AMD, eBay, Intuit, Oracle, and Yahoo, has issued a strong defense of current Canadian copyright law, arguing that the US is wrong to place Canada on the annual Special 301 list. The submission argues that the US should not criticize Canada for not implementing anti-circumvention rules (PDF) and warns against using the Special 301 process to 'remake the world in the image of the DMCA.'"

5 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  2. Re:Proudly Canadian by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Informative

    As far as I've seen, those warnings are given to people downloading using P2P, which also counts as distribution.

  3. Re:Proudly Canadian by realityimpaired · · Score: 4, Informative

    To get back on topic, the chances are very remote, and that's the way I like it. Personally, I feel Canadian copyright law is far ahead of the US's DMCA centric attitude. The nature of copyright has to evolve with current times and technologies, allowing P2P downloads for personal use while putting a fee on MP3 players and blank media is a compromise that I see as fair

    The reason that things like file sharing are legal in Canada is specifically because Canadian copyright law *hasn't* changed. Our laws were written in the 1980's, when it wasn't really easy to copy a large volume of music, and the risk was mostly just people copying a CD to a cassette for a friend, or making a mix tape for somebody. You weren't dealing with high volume copies, and you weren't dealing with anything near the ubiquity that the Internet affords, which is a large part of why the laws are so relaxed here.

  4. Re:Proudly Canadian by schon · · Score: 4, Informative

    The reason that things like file sharing are legal in Canada is specifically because Canadian copyright law *hasn't* changed.

    Actually, Canadian copyright law has been changing constantly.

    Our laws were written in the 1980's

    Incorrect. 1988 was the first major overhaul since the law was written in 1924, however there have been a bunch of updates (in 1989, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2001 and 2007) to bring it to its current state - for example, when the 1988 law was enacted, the private copying right that we now enjoy (and that this thread is about) did not exist - it was illegal to copy any music without written permission, regardless of the reason. It wasn't until the amendment in 1997 that we gained the legal right to make private copies.

  5. IIPA and open source software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I took a look in the IIPA Special 301 report for Brazil at http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2010/2010SPEC301BRAZIL.pdf, it's very instructive. I particularly appreciated the following part in page 141:

              Priority actions requested to be taken in 2010:
              - ...
              - Avoid legislation on the mandatory use of open source software by government agencies and government controlled companies.
              - ...

    Honestly, is there a justifiable link between protecting intellectual property and putting restrictions on the adoption of open source software? If people used more OSS, software piracy would drop. Maybe the IIPA believes that OSS platforms are mostly used for doing software piracy... ;-)