Canada Remains a 'Safe Haven' For Online Piracy, Rightsholders Claim (torrentfreak.com)

The MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment industry groups are calling out Canada, claiming that it remains a "safe haven" for copyright infringers and pirate sites, reports TorrentFreak. From the article: One of the main criticisms is that, despite having been called out repeatedly in the past, the country still offers a home to many pirate sites. "For a number of years, extending well into the current decade, Canada had a well-deserved reputation as a safe haven for some of the most massive and flagrant Internet sites dedicated to the online theft of copyright material," IIPA writes. Another disturbing development, according to IIPA, is the emergence of stand-alone BitTorrent applications that allow users to stream content directly through an attractive and user-friendly interface, hinting at Popcorn Time. In addition to the traditional pirate sites that remain in Canada, IIPA reports that several websites offering modified game console gear have also moved there in an attempt to escape liability under U.S. law.

Comments

If the *.AA think it's bad

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

It's probably a net good for the world. The sooner these leeches are cut off, the better for literally everyone involved in the equation other than themselves.

Re:If the *.AA think it's bad

[BlueStrat]

...the only real reason that people object to calling copyright infringement "theft" is because they don't want to feel guilty about doing it,...

Or maybe, I dunno, because it's clearly defined as two separate things under the law.

I understand copyright infringement is against the law, but "the law is an ass" in this case as the law is the product of corruption and criminality. I did not feel this way before the endless extensions and honored copyright law. Now, not so much. If copyright was reset back to the original terms I would once again take it seriously.

The world has changed and copyright must change with it, or die. As it stands, copyright law is locking away our own culture by preventing works from entering the public domain, which is the reason why copyright law was originally written, not to assure someone and their relatives money in near-perpetuity for a single creative work. That was simply a carrot to encourage creators to share their works. You have no inherent right otherwise to profit from or control any creative work once it's been published.

Strat

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Canadians chose to write their laws in a way that favors consumers over major content distributors.

Canadians are OK with this.

Screw off, big media. Eat a puck.

Re:Good

[Minion of Eris]

To paraphrase what our Supreme Court said (back in the late 80's or early 90's - time makes things slightly fuzzy) "Peer-to-peer networking is much like having a photocopier in a library - there is nothing inherently illegal in it." We have generally had a bit more lenient an interpretation of "fair use" as well.

Go Canada!

[Sebby]

So the poor snowflakes over at the MaPhiAA are tired of "calling out" Canada for not bending over to ensure its profits.

Well, BOO-FUCKING-HOO!

Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words they have perfectly sensible piracy laws that don't roll through peoples lives like like a WWII sea mine for copying a few songs/movies. These agencies lost the right to make these kinds of claims when they began hitting people with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and jail terms for making duplicates of their crap and calling it "theft" of "intellectual property", while at the same time demanding that they not be held accountable when in their steamrolling operations they hit droves of innocent people with copyright claims/take-down notices.

Shoe on the other foot

[Anonymous Coward]

How would Americans feel if a Canadian IP rights agency was trying to influence American laws and how things were done down there?

Something tells me that it wouldn't be acceptable.

I know not all Americans feel the same way but this is how a country alienates its self from the rest of the world and given how much content the US provides for the rest of the world, these actions might be instrumental to the loss of profit in the content creators as the rest of the world stops playing this game.

Pirates buy a lot too

[Tyr07]

The problem they have is pirates have the better product.

It just works, it doesn't hassle me for what devices I play it on, it's not greedy trying to make me pay for every device I watch it on. I mean fuck that's like if a VCR tape worked only on one TV and if you bought a new TV they expect you to buy a new tape to watch the same movie you already paid for.

Stop being retarded maybe, that's a good start. Stop region locking, there's a lot of content I'd happily buy at a reasonable price to add to my collect, but then PIRACY so DRM and if your shit service goes down, I lose my collection.

Pirated content can be safely at high quality stored on other media and collections saved.

The only real future is if they develop an international system that all countries support including the government and it's people to subscribe services and licenses to, the licensing and distribution has to include the government and be attached to government IDs for the country to apply their licenses.

If I purchase the collection of sword art online, it's registered to me forever, I can watch it on any device I own, and if you are at someones house you can temp sign in to watch a movie you paid for etc.

Like real media then you can share it reasonably, but once you leave, it goes with you, which protects the copyright holders as well as applies the convenience we expect.

That's the only realistic future for these kinds of things, and even so it won't be perfect, but until your product is better than pirated content, you're fucked.