For non-Canadians: an oft-heard reason for urgent reform to make Canadian copyright more restrictive is that the US government (and the US copyright lobby) say that Canadian copyright law is lax compared to the US version. Canada has even been put on copyright watchlists, along with countries like China and Russia.
1. Canada has about 36 copyright collectives, many of which have received substantial direct and indirect government subsidies. The U.S. has only about half a dozen, with no government support.The Annual "301" Show - USTR Calls for Comment - 21 Reasons Why Canadian Copyright Law is Already Stronger Than USA's (Thanks, Michael!)2. Canada has a full-time Copyright Board which has normally had four full time members plus a sitting or retired Judge as Chairman and currently about a dozen full time professional and administrative staff. The Board has enormous policy and, effectively, law making powers. No other country of which I am aware comes close to having such a large, permanent, powerful and full time copyright tribunal.
3. Broadcasters pay more for copyright royalties than their counterparts in the USA, much of it for rights that don't even exist in the USA - for example the "ephemeral right."The U.S. provides an outright exemption in 17 USC §112 for the "ephemeral right." Now, about $50-million a year more over and above is being demanded by a collective dominated by the American dominated record labels for this right in addition to amounts now collected by composers, authors and publishers.(Canada's Copyright Board heard a major case where this will be decided on commercial radio in December of 2008 and January of 2009. However, it will probably be at least 18 months to two years after the hearing before a decision is announced, based upon the timing of some recent major decisions from the Board.
4. The Canadian Copyright Board values each right under the Copyright Act brought before it separately, with little regard to the layering and multiplicity of tariffs that result, in effect, for the same transaction. Whether this is an error in approach by the Board, and/or in policy, and/or in legislative drafting or at all is subject to fair debate. But the fact is that U.S. law goes to great length to avoid such a result, as recent court decisions have confirmed...
- Canadian thinktank withdraws copyright "research" that plagiarised ...
- Canada's Crown Copyright: high-cost censorship - Boing Boing
- Boing Boing: Canada's copyright czar's boomerang tantrum at Museum ...
- Boing Boing: Youtube vid sends up Bev Oda, Canadian copyright czar
- Canadian DMCA is worse than the American one - Boing Boing
- Canada's copyright czar lied about money from entertainment execs ...
- Canadian RIAA calls for stronger copyright measures than in the US ...
It’s nice to have a senate that takes their job seriously. They won’t let the lobbyists have it both ways.
The music industry got its media levy in Canada, so downloading music is legal. We pay for it with a tax on blank CDs.
What? No one uses CDs any more, so now the poor RIAA isn’t getting their pound of flesh? I guess they should have thought a little more about their goals. Now they have to get two things done — repeal of the original law, and draconian punishments implemented.
I bet the Canadian Senate will refuse to give them punishments that exceed obviously worse crimes.
People who want to makes Canadian Copyright law don’t actually know what our laws are, they simply know what they want them to be.
And of course have every intention of ignoring them when it suits their own purposes.
I find #2 to be the most onerous of those listed. I am assuming these are not elected officials and it smacks of the Human Rights Councils which had overreaching powers to quash free speech that they deemed unsavory. Law by bureaucrat should be held in universal contempt by free democracies. Instead we end up with boards such as above and the FCC wielding near law making authority and populated by unelected persons.