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Canada Creates Cap On Liability For File Sharing Lawsuits
An anonymous reader writes "Over the past couple of days, there have been reports
about the return of file sharing lawsuits to Canada, with fears that
thousands of Canadians could be targeted. While it is possible that
many will receive demand letters, Michael Geist has posted a
detailed primer on liability in Canada that notes that recent
changes to Canadian copyright law limit liability in non-commercial
cases to a maximum of $5,000 for all infringement claims. In fact,
it is likely that a court would award far less — perhaps as little
as $100 — if the case went to court as even the government's
FAQ on the recent copyright reform bill provided assurances
that Canadians 'will not face disproportionate penalties for minor
infringements of copyright by distinguishing between commercial and
non-commercial infringement.'"
Yet another reason to consider moving to Canada...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#Canada
If I bought a spindle of DVDs, I should not be able to be sued.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Prime Minister
> notes that recent changes to Canadian copyright law limit liability
> in non-commercial cases to a maximum of $5,000 for all infringement claims.
But that is $5000 in Canadian dollars. How much is that in human dollars?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
That service is NOT available in Canada.
Which is a shame because I often find music I want through that service that I can't find CDs for.
crazy dynamite monkey
If you were really Canadian you would of said:
"No, sorry. Please get your own reason."
*I am actually Canadian, and that is how we actually talk.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
* provide legal protection for businesses that choose to use technological protection measures or "digital locks" to protect their work as part of their business models; and,
* give consumers the ability to, among other things, record their favourite TV shows for later viewing, transfer music from a CD to a digital device, and create a mash-up to post via social media.
In other words, stronger protections for (1) to take away (2). They explcitly repeat it under the consumer benefits as "if they are doing so for their private use and have not broken a digital lock." and under concerns of creators as "Consumers will not be able to break a digital lock to exercise these exceptions.". They're also going to hit on all sorts of "enablers" of copyright infringement, but don't worry because they say "Search engines and ISPs will be unaffected by this provision, to the extent that they act as true intermediaries." My guess is that there's no true Scotsman. But sure they capped the non-commercial infringement to $5k instead of $20k now. By the way, did anyone check if they use the US definition of "commercial" where if it has a large enough sticker value they count it as commercial anyway even if you make no money on it?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There has to be something in place to prevent people from outright stealing of music and movies. Artists deserve to be compensated for their work. But this American notion of massive awards to greedy Hollywood studios has got to stop. Is it really fair to bankrupt people because they shared some songs? I never stole any songs but I am so disgusted with the whole thing that I have basically stopped buying music all together. It's mostly internet radio for me these days. I won't give those greedy bastards a nickel.
In keeping with our Common Sense, bringing 5000 cases to court against an individual would be pretty obvious to the court, and time consuming for the company suing. I'm guessing our Judges would not like to see that, considering how congested our courts are already. Not to mention circumventing the spirit of the law in this case.
And the 5000 dollar sum is on the outside of the award - considering the guidelines for judges and the government FAQ on the matter (range from 100-5000 dollars) it is unlikely that 5k will be the norm.
Would it be worth it to the company suing?
Except it's pretty tricky to prove filesharing charges - there's actually very few lawsuits that go to court, just a few where the case is comparatively strong and the damages will be outrageous to scare everyone else into settling for a few grand. If the maximum penalty is instead a few grand (especially if the official recommendation is much lower for typical infractions) then a lot more people will be willing to actually go to court and the profitability of the business model will evaporate.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
$5000 max for all infringement prior to the filing date of the lawsuit. You can not be sued for the same infringement twice.
However, $5000 is also unlikely as the range is from $100 to $5000 with emphasis implied towards the low end of that scale.
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.
Well, DUH!
If there's nobody to bribe politicians, they will do what gets them votes, after all, then this is their main income. They are just like any whores, they follow the money.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I approve any measure designed to restrain judgments to something fair and reasonable.
However, there are more costs to a lawsuit than the judgment.
First, a lawsuit is a public event in which the participants are publicly identified. That's on your "Google record" for life.
Next, it's a really stressful event. I think most people would rather perform surgery on themselves than go through a lawsuit.
Finally, it's going to affect how people respond to you while it's going on. Someone who's currently in litigation has a stigma around them.
So while this is a good thing in part, it may be addressing the smallest part of the actual cost of the lawsuit.
Looks nice on paper, but what is the definition of "commercial"? For-profit or "damage being high enough" (with damage being and arbitrary number pulled out of the plaintiff's rear end)?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
DRM is by definition, and I mean by capitalist definition, a failed idea. The main reason is that it makes a product that is already hard to sell even less desirable to the customer.
Commercial software is competing with itself. Well, actually, with its counterfeit/copied counterpart. The prospective user has two choices to acquire the software, either buy a legitimate copy or produce an illegal copy. The advantage of the latter is obviously the price. And it's hard to impossible to compete with free on price. Add now that the average user neither understands nor cares about copyright and the chance of getting caught being slim to nil and we can see why the "legal" part can be, at least on the "fear of being caught and punished" part, ignored.
So what legitimate software can compete at is quality. If the customer can sensibly expect the legitimate software to work better than the ripped copy, that's a sales point. That's actually the selling point in everything but software. When I buy a car from a legitimate dealer, I have warranty and I get support, I might even have extended warranties, I will get informed if something is wrong with their car software and they'll replace it for free... no such luck if you got that car from a shady dealer in an alley behind the dumpers. And let's even imagine for a moment that nobody is missing that car and wants it back.
If I buy a hard drive from a contract dealer in my country, I will probably have something close to lifetime warranty, and believe me, a 3 years warranty on HDs (like WD used to give) is a very good value, since the chance that more than zero of the 8 HDs in the RAID will fail is almost 1. Or, in other words, I had to replace and RMA 4 of the 8 HDs I had. I don't blame WD, since the stress on those HDs was pretty tough, but they exchanged them without any troubles and hassle free. Think I would have gotten the same deal if I got them from some street dealer? I think not.
With software, though, it's all backwards. Buying the original, legitimate copy nets you a worse item than the counterfeit, ripped one. With the P2P copy you install the game, apply the crack and play it. With the legitimate copy you install the game, search for a cd key, create an account with the maker of the game, log in 100 times because their authentication servers are swamped during release times, hope and pray that nothing goes wrong during the locking of the cd key to your account so you don't have to find out how to contact their customer support and convince them that you actually bought the game but their stupid registration system barfed and locked you out, start the game a few times until their auth server responds, play, then suddenly crash, not because the game is buggy but because you lost contact with their auth server (hope you saved or that last hour you played... byebye).
You get the idea, I know I'm preaching the choir. I just wish those overpaid idiots on top of the game producer's ivory tower would catch on.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You should have seen the proposed copyright laws dating back to the Liberal government of the early 2000s. RIAA and MPAA were pushing really hard for a super-DMCA, and were still putting on the pressure over the last few years. But every once in a while, making a helluva lot of noise can accomplish something. I wrote my MP three letters over the last five years detailing out how the media industry-backed legislation would significantly harm consumers, remove choice and open up even minor infringement to destructive lawsuits.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
True, provided you break no digital lock to do this
So you can't take a snippet of video from a DVD or Blu-Ray or other stream and use it for your fair dealing, which makes the exception fairly pointless.
So yes, the rights are enshrined in law. However, the digital lock part overrides that law - so even if you wanted to share a 30 second video, if it involves breaking a digital lock (again, no mention how "weak" the lock has to be, like DVDs), you can't do it.
So yeah, they're very generous. It's just you can't do anything with them because of the locks.
I suppose we can use the analog hole still as selective availability is still not around, yet.
And would connecting a device that converts protected content to unprotected format be considered a digital lock? I mean, if I take my blu-ray player, connect it via HDMI (&HDCP) to an HDFury (HDMI (with or without HDCP) to analog component video converter) and record that using a component video digitizer (e.g. Hauppage HD-PVR), did I break a lock?
This latest round of "possible crackdown" stories _is_ the story itself -- frighten the masses into obedience. The legal system can only deal with a limited number of objectionable people. The rest have to be frightened/corralled into compliance.
With some norms, most people are happy to comply because they see the reason and rationale for it. Even if they don't like someone, most are unlikely to attack or steal from them because someone else is likely to do the same to them. The law can [barely] deal with the exceptions. When exceptions become common, as in the US alcohol prohibilition, and drug prohibition [borderline], the law fails in spectacular and mission-jeopardizing manner [discretion/corruption].
With something as ephemeral and esoteric as copyright monopoly grants, it is very unclear who is being harmed and by how much. Sure, it is easy to see harm from unauthorized identical copies being sold at retail. But far less obvious for downloading a TV episode/song that was broadcast yesterday.
So the monopoly grant-holders have to frighten everyone. Sometimes by head-on-pike examples.
"If there's nobody to bribe politicians"
Or more simply, implement a completely transparent registry of all lobbyists, who they *really* represent, and all their meetings:
https://ocl-cal.gc.ca/eic/site/012.nsf/eng/home
Go ahead and try to bribe, or strong-arm. Someone *will* notice. There's people who's only job is to watch the list and report on it.
In general, damages in Canada are limited to real damage. ie: your fender is damaged in a car accident then it is strictly body shop charges (assuming no injury).
A record company would have to show real loss which is typically the actual lost sale and not some imaginary extension to what might have happened. Criminal fines are different though but it is fairly well established that people are fined somewhat proportionate to the crime.
In other words, there is nothing new here with regards to not allowing disproportionate punishment.
I called mine. I don't think he wants to talk to me anymore.
I wonder how long it will be before they plug that hole?
yes. the big flaw with our legal system is that you have to PROVE your case in court.
it would be much more efficient if the plaintif could just show up at the defendants house with a baseball bat and break his legs.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.