Canadian Piracy Rates Plummet As Industry Points To New Copyright Notice System

An anonymous reader writes: Canada's copyright notice-and-notice system took effect earlier this year, leading to thousands of notifications being forwarded by Internet providers to their subscribers. Since its launch, there have been serious concerns about the use of notices to demand settlements and to shift the costs of enforcement to consumers and Internet providers. Yet reports indicate that piracy rates in Canada have plummeted, with some ISPs seeing a 70% decrease in online infringement.

Comments

Or they're just proxying their connections

[Karmashock]

... I mean... there are some VPNs that are literally free.

Re:Or they're just proxying their connections

[Anonymous Coward]

"They will NEVER win."

You are a fool if you believe that. They have won. You just don't understand what their true goal is.

The real goal is to shift control from the individual citizens and corporations, into the hands of government and mega corporations; in that effort, they were successful.

Re:Or they're just proxying their connections

[Adriax]

Probably more like 7% reduction in people who pirate. And most of those would be kids who lost their in room PCs when mommy and daddy got the notice.

People don't all pirate the same amount, so changes in infringer numbers don't equate to an identical change in traffic amounts. The industry knows this and uses both interchangeably depending on whichever supports their case the best.
Here, as always, there is little to no context so we don't know the actual effect of the notices. We just have to take them on their word.

Re:Or they're just proxying their connections

[Penguinisto]

You do know the internet started as a government funded initiative right?

If anything, the powerful interests are losing control... not gaining it.

I disagree, and one need look no further than Facebook. Most of the political distraction/messaging being passed around positively reeks of being astroturfed by competing mega-interests. Also, consider that the proletariat is too easily distracted, ignorant, and tribal, so getting them to ask the wrong questions means you never have to worry about the answers.

The control is still there and stronger than ever - just that they're now using new methods to do it.

Re:Or they're just proxying their connections

[Anonymous Coward]

You're either very young or very naive, or a combination of both. If you're an adult, tough, I'd seek help because you're delusional. We're moving towards less freedom, more and more surveillance and a general understanding that we're better off censoring ourselves. Think how many things you can say today that would not only be perceived as "wrong" but actually cause you very serious trouble. One wrong word uttered and you can find yourself unemployable if not the target of the State's rough attention. We're not getting more access, we're getting more surveillance. It's going to get a lot worse.

Re:Or they're just proxying their connections

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

This sounds convincing until you realise that the overwhelming majority of content being shared illegally on-line is less than five years old.

People aren't really ripping Star Wars to protest against long copyright periods. They're ripping Age of Ultron so they can watch it for free.

People aren't downloading cracked versions of Donkey Kong. They're downloading cracked versions of the latest Assassin's Creed.

These things would have been illegal under even the earliest and shortest periods of copyright protection. These are titles that took hundreds of people and millions of dollars of investment to make, and the law effectively requiring people to contribute in return for their copy does promote the useful arts by making such projects financially viable.

Re:Or they're just proxying their connections

[SuricouRaven]

Fourteen years was the original term, and seems quite reasonable - if a commercial work hasn't brought in enough money in that long, it isn't going to bring in much more with a longer term.

Alternatives

[phorm]

It doesn't hurt that Canadian Netflix etc has been improving their content, and the cable monopolies recently had to change to a-la-carte packaging for their services as well. There's also seems to be a bit of a dearth of great movies, so maybe there's less to pirate.

Re:Taxes?

[ArcadeMan]

But there's nothing to subsidize is you're making a private copy of something you've already bought/paid a license for, unless you think I should have to pay for a DVD twice because I keep a ripped copy for a media server?