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EU Demands Canada Gut Its Copyright and Patent Laws
An anonymous reader writes "Late last year, a draft of the European Union proposal for the
intellectual property chapter of Canada, EU Comprehensive Economic
Trade Agreement, leaked online.
The leak revealed that the EU was seeking some significant changes to
Canadian IP laws. Negotiations have continued and Michael Geist
has now obtained an updated copy
of the draft chapter, complete with proposals from both the EU and
Canada. He says the breadth of the demands is stunning — the EU
is demanding nothing less than a complete overhaul of Canadian IP laws
including copyright, trademark, databases, patent, geographic
indications, and even plant variety rights."
Global harmonization through treaties is creating a race to the bottom as far as the citizen's general welfare is concerned.
I can't imagine why Canada is still negotiating such a treaty when it seems to be so insanely one-sided.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Well, they also demanded we stop the seal hunt. Are they going to request that we all wear visors while playing hockey too? Honestly. How naive.
How do you say "fuck off" in Canadian?
Seriously, as a Canadian this disgusts me. The EU, the US... What the hell gives these assholes the right to demand ANYTHING?
Makes me absolutely sick to read this. There is nothing wrong with Canada's laws. And that is exactly why they want it changed, so there IS something wrong with it to throw the balance off hugely in favour of coporations.
Despicable.
And to think that the EU had taken such a great stand with the ACTA. Then this has to happen.
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
Well, it's a treaty. All the Canadians have to do is to not sign it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You're already American. North American!
lol
and what is the EU going to do? Give them a very dirty look?
Sign Ze Treaty or We Will Taunt You A Second Time!
The EU Commission is a non-elected body which has as it sole mandate[1] to restrict the rights of citizens, and extend the rights of EU based corporations. It is the Commission that negotiate these treaties, and in general propose new legislation.
The EU Parliament is an elected body which cannot propose new legislation, but can, and sometimes do, block the proposals from the commission. The good stuff you hear from the EU is usually from the Parliament, but they contribute their share of crap as well, as parliaments do everywhere.
[1] Judging by its actions.
In many cases this is a myth, a nice fiction we can tell ourselves to make us feel better. Treaties can be convenient way for governments to institute unpopular measures. Here's how it works:
Keep in mind that the real push for this comes from multinational media corporations. Governments are not negotiating as independent actors: these corporations intervene on all sides to coordinate and even draft proposals. What we really have is a group of likeminded businesses who operate in concert using individual countries as a front. The treaty then appears to be the result of self-interested negotiations between independent actors: in fact the aim is to stage-manage it to appear that way. Given a means to diffuse opposition (e.g. policy laundering), governments - or, more specifically, the relevant politicians and bureaucrats within governments - may find that lobbyists make sure it is in their personal interest to cooperate.
I have no personal knowledge of how this treaty is being negotiated. I am not accusing anyone of anything. I hope that the relevant individuals in government are representing the interests of Canadians. But I have no doubt this is the kind of thing the usual suspects are trying to pull. In which case the suggestion that "we can just say no" neatly conceals what's really happening.
One final point: Canada is in no way the equal of the EU. The EU has over 500 million people to Canada's 32 million. We tend to anthropomorphize negotiations as though countries were freely contracting equal citizens. They aren't. They are unequal powers.
Would that be "Up yours, mate!" or "May I have some more, sir?"
You're thinking of Australia. Our response would be "Up yours, eh?"
Dear World,
As one of the few countries in the world whose economy is not absolutely sitting in the toilet, we, the People of Canada, would like to politely ask you all to fuck off, eh. We appreciate your opinions on our intellectual property laws but, given that we're not bordering on bankruptcy and/or forcing our people to live in a Nanny-state like the rest of you seem to be, we are forced to assume we must be doing something right while the rest of you aren't exactly laying down templates of "how it should be done."
We do apologize for the broad generalizations that may be made in this message but, really, the point remains - fuck off, eh. Mind your own damn business and we'll mind our own. We've done pretty well at minding our business and are just fine with things as they are. Thanks.
Sincerely and respectfully, Canada.
I seem to remember (which means, I don't have a reliable source...) that last time there was a dispute between the EU and the US about trade tariffs, the EU went and put a relatively large (around 50%) tax on a whole list of implausible-seeming products. The only connection between them is that they were each important to the economy of a swing state in the (then-upcoming) US election; the EU was trying to put pressure on the incumbents to accede to their demands or be voted out by their own citizens. (I ran into this problem when trying to import some embedded microprocessors from the US to the UK; it was necessary to decide whether they were handheld computers without a calculator function (very low import duty rate), or handheld computers with a calculator function (much higher import duty rate). In the end, I think they qualified as non-calculators.)
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Shooting them is A) the most humane way to go about it
Actually, fun fact: Shooting them isn't necessarily the most humane way to go about it. The problem is that, unless you're a very good shot, you're far more likely to wound the animal rather than killing it outright. But a well-placed strike with a hakapik is very quick and effective in trained hands, comparable with established and acceptable humane killing practices according to the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards.
As you say, though, the whole thing is massively overblown thanks to organizations like PETA. Hell, in that wikipedia link, there's a rather interesting quote from a WWF study on seal hunting practices:
But, hey, what does the WWF know?
Canadian IP laws explicitly legalize fair use (e.g. format-shifting), and even limited nonprofit sharing of copyrighted works (due to fee on "recordable media"). Canada doesn't have software patents, nor any kind of DMCA-like anti-circumvention provision.
In what way do Canadian laws "mirror those in the US"? If anything, I'd say it's one of the better countries in terms of those, which is precisely why USA govt has been throwing a hissy fit about Canadian IP laws for several years now.