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Canada Encouraged US To Place It On Piracy List
An anonymous reader writes "Copyright, U.S. lobbying, and the stunning backroom Canadian response gets front
page news treatment today in Canada as the Toronto Star covers new revelations on copyright by Michael Geist (who offers a longer post with links to the cables)
from the U.S. cables released by WikiLeaks. The cables reveal that former Industry Minister Maxime Bernier raised the possibility of leaking the copyright bill to U.S. officials before it was to be tabled in the House of Commons, former Industry Minister Tony Clement's director of policy Zoe Addington encouraged the U.S. to pressure Canada by elevating it on a piracy watch list, Privy Council Office official Ailish Johnson disclosed the content of ministerial mandate letters, and former RCMP national coordinator for intellectual property crime Andris Zarins advised the U.S. that the government was working on a separate intellectual property enforcement bill."
Can't have people getting used to the truth now, can we ?
What a mess of adjectives.
I think it says: one Canuck politician tried to get his way in a Copyright legislation deal by using America as muscle.
I know politics can get evil at time but seriously, WTF?
That's as close to treason as I can see to the tech industry.
Media Levies? Fine, thank you for protecting us from RIAA type tatics.
But then to turn around and sell out the entire COUNTRY to further your agenda? That's plain evil and I wish someone had the gonads to actually put people in jail over this.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
For those that don't know, we currently have had pretty far right leaning neo-conservative governments (still not as far right as the US tea party, but pretty bad).
They have been caught lying to parliament and making illegal backroom deals in the past, yet because the Liberals can't seem to field a leader who isn't a blithering idiot (Dion) or perceived as weak (Ignatief) our left of centre vote gets split between Liberals, NDP and Green (which combined makes up over 50%) and the right of centre vote goes all towards the Conservatives.
It just goes to show you, that first past the post doesn't work well...
None of this is any surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, they are not above being sleazy in the same way that the ocean is not above the sky.
I think this sort of information should be forced to be disclosed legally.
How are people supposed to know who to blame for the mess of legislation if this sort of thing is done under wraps? I'm sure this guy wouldn't see another term in office if this sort of thing was known earlier.
I realise doing it in secret was the whole point of it, but these people should be held accountable, they are meant to represent the people, and the people need to know what they're doing.
and they typically 'leak' information for political reasons, for power and influence, for purposes of manipulation and propaganda.
that is why government prosecutions of 'leakers' are the ultimate hypocrisy. government itself is the biggest leaker of all.
These cable leaks will effectively neuter the Conservatives for the next four years, since their entire policy is based on sucking American cock.
Are you kidding me? There are three types of us; those who know what's going on and act on that knowledge (a.k.a. politicians), those who know what's going on and don't act on that knowledge (you and I), and the vast, vast majority that don't read about any of this and wouldn't understand or care if they did.
All the politicians need to do is keep smearing each other with "they tax you too much" and "they are killing our health care/education/whatever" and "he's a pedophile". Nobody brings real issues into campaigning because the majority of constituents don't understand real issues not because they're stupid but because they don't want to.
"Oh no... he found the
Piracy is legally sanctioned in Canada by the surcharge added to the price of digital media to compensate for its use in making unauthorized copies of copyrighted materials. If you're NOT pirating media in Canada, you're not getting all of what you've paid for.
The head of Spain's RIAA has been found to have encouraged Spain to be included in the "Special 301" list, as well.
This is especially irritating, since it is that same organization who has used "Special 301" as an argument to pressure the government into modifying our laws to combat webs which offered links to warez. It is worth pointing out that those same webs have been found to be completely legal for years, since they don't actually host the copyrighted material.
It is just amazing that a country will bow and modify its laws just because it was included in a "piracy list". Especially if what they intend to change is rather ineffective and too vague. Any web which links to material without the original author's permission can be blocked, which will probably result in 1. no less piracy and 2. abuse of this new law by others.
I don't understand why they would block the webs that link and do not host the material, instead of blocking those that do host the material.
Well, actually I do. It is, of course, because P2P links would be impossible to block (users would need to be blocked) without resorting to a HADOPI-style law - which they don't like because it is considered too impopular.
This would have happened whether a "Conservative, right-wing" government was in or the Liberals. To understand, you need to read a 2008 story from the same watchdog, Michael Geist (to whom all Canada should be deeply indebted for tracking these issues for years):
http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/443867
The key phrase in the story is "Canadian officials arrived ready to talk about a series of economic concerns but were quickly rebuffed by their U.S. counterparts, who indicated that progress on other issues would depend upon action on the copyright file."
Americans are sometimes surprised to learn (Condi Rice was one, which was disappointing from a foreign-affairs scholar) that Canada is the US' largest trading partner, more bilateral trade than with your #2 (China) and your #4 (UK) combined, nearly as much as China+Japan (#3). So imagine how large a trading partner the US is for Canada - 80% of the total, last time I checked, that is, 4X as much trade as with all other partners combined.
When the US really wants to lean on Canada at trade discussions, their only difficulty is choosing which levers to pull: making trouble over standard inspections of meat and grains? Lumber? Re-investigating whether Canada subsidizes iron ore, holding up imports while doing so?
So you can find some profoundly anti-Canadian stances being taken by Canadian trade officials - until you see the larger picture and find they were arranging to charge all Canadians an extra $100/year for media content ($3 billion from 30 million people) to smooth the path for $6B in exports - of the $76B total, they only have to pick less than 10% to threaten.
and many publishers are coming up with similar system
But that's a bad thing. Steam itself isn't too bad, but it's still prohibits resale without lowering prices and causes a lot of other irritation.
The appropriate reaction to multiple publishers all trying to make their own Steam-type platform is disgust and terror. More proprietary bullshit, more integrated systems to figure out when one (Steam) was enough from the consumer perspective (and that's ignoring those who hate Steam already), and more opportunities for situations like Sony's nightmarish mismanagement of game credentials and account information.
Digital delivery platforms don't presently look like a good future; they're generally ways of inconveniencing and restricting customers, not better catering their needs.
Why is anyone paying any attention to this piracy list? Surely nobody's suggesting that the piracy level in Canada and Spain is anything like that in China or South Africa. Everyone realises that it's just there as a stick to try to bully these countries into capitulating to American demands.
But it's so obvious. Any politician who's remotely against American "cultural imperialism" is going to see it for what it is and actively work against the measures urged by the US. Surely the watch list does as much harm as good. There are much more subtle ways to get his message across.
Actually, this is Canada carefully manipulating the USA, we just want it to look like we're the victim. The overall plan is to implement Canadian currency as the Common North American currency.
-eyeballs Mexico-
It had everything to do with the ends justify the means right wing politics of Harper.
Read the OP:
“In contrast to the messages from other Canadian officials, she said that if Canada is elevated to the Special 301 Priority Watch List (PWL), it would not hamper — and might even help — the (government of Canada's) ability to enact copyright legislation,” the cable says.
Days later, Canada was elevated on the piracy watch list.
Harper has been copying the republican play book throughout his term in politics. Manufacture a crisis that needs the response he wants anyway.
Contact your Member of Parliament. Express your thoughts. They need to know we won't tolerate this.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx