China and Canada among top on US piracy watch list; Sydney Morning Herald, 5/20/10

Chris Lefkow, Sydney Morning Herald; China and Canada among top on US piracy watch list:

"US legislators have accused Canada, China, Mexico, Russia and Spain of "robbing Americans" by failing to crack down on piracy of movies, music, videogames and other copyrighted works.

Theft of intellectual property in the five nations was at "alarming levels," the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus said Wednesday, placing them at the top of the "2010 International Piracy Watch List" for the second year in a row.

The caucus, made up of 70 members of the US House of Representatives and Senate, said it was "greatly disappointed by their failure to make meaningful progress during the last year" in protecting copyrighted works.

"We are losing billions and billions of US dollars because of the lack of intellectual property protections," said Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah. "These five countries have been robbing Americans."

"Unfortunately, the United States is on the wrong end of the greatest theft of intellectual property in the history of humankind," said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island. "This must be stopped, and soon."

The bipartisan caucus, citing industry estimates, said global piracy costs US firms over 25 billion US dollars in lost sales annually.

The US legislators also released for the first time what they called a "list of notorious offenders" -- websites making available unauthorized copies of the works of US creators.

The websites singled out were China's Baidu, Canada's isoHunt, Ukraine's MP3fiesta, Sweden's Pirate Bay, Germany's Rapidshare and Luxembourg's RMX4U.

The caucus called on US trading partners to "take action against websites based within their borders whose business models are premised on delivering infringing content."

Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents major record companies, said the "websites facilitate massive theft" and "undermine legitimate commerce."

"The question for us globally is 'Can we create a world in which the Internet becomes a place of order rather than a place of chaos?" he asked.

Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, said pressure needs to be brought to bear on US banks and credit card companies whose services are being used to pay for pirated material on "rogue websites."

"We not only have to put pressure on these countries that are tolerating piracy or encouraging piracy but we also have to put some pressure on companies here at home that are helping facilitate piracy," Schiff said. "We need to dry up that revenue stream as part of the attack on those sites."

"This includes companies like Visa and Mastercard that facilitate financial transactions on these sites," he said.

The caucus said Canada is a "leading host" of illegal file-sharing sites and its "enforcement record continues to fall short of what should be expected of our neighbour and largest trading partner."
"At one point in 2009, five of the world's top 10 illegitimate 'bit torrent' sites were registered, located, or operated out of Canada," it said.

In China, "copyright theft is viewed in some sectors of the economy as a legitimate strategy for Chinese competitiveness," the caucus said. "This must end."

Microsoft cited piracy as a major reason that the US technology giant's software revenue per personal computer purchase is 15 times greater in the United States than it is in China.

"We have a particular problem in China in our business, which is that piracy is sky high," Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer told a gathering of corporate chief executives on Wednesday.

Mexico is a leading source for illegal camcorder copies of US films, the caucus said, and "piracy of hard goods and unauthorized use of software also remain severe problems."

The caucus said Russia has made "inadequate progress in addressing Internet piracy" and needs to adopt "updated and uniform procedures for investigation and prosecution of copyright infringement."

As for Spain, the caucus said it hopes the Spanish government will move quickly to tackle peer-to-peer piracy. "Greater accountability and deterrence must be established in Spanish law," it said."

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-technology/china-and-canada-among-top-on-us-piracy-watch-list-20100520-vlc2.html

Authors want out of Google Books deal; (Montreal) Gazette, 1/9/10

Roberto Rocha, (Montreal) Gazette; Authors want out of Google Books deal:

"A group of writers wants Canada out of the Google Books settlement, which would create a huge digital library of books for anyone to see, and asks the federal government to loudly oppose the deal.

An online petition by authors Sarah Sheard and David Bolt contends Google has no business setting copyright precedents in the United States for Canadian works, and too many affected writers don't know or understand the details of the settlement.

"We want the government to get really loud about this," said Bolt, who owns the estate of his late wife, author Carol Bolt. If opposition is strong enough, he argues, Google might remove Canadian books from its project, as it did with other nations, like France and New Zealand.

The petition has about 230 signatories."

http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Authors+want+Google+deal/2418260/story.html

Canada Also Getting Pushed By EU On Ridiculous Copyright Policies; TechDirt, 12/18/09

Mike Masnick, TechDirt; Canada Also Getting Pushed By EU On Ridiculous Copyright Policies:

"If you thought secrecy over ACTA was bad enough, apparently Canada and the EU are involved in equally secret negotiations on a separate treaty that has additional copyright implications that are just as bad, if not worse than what ACTA would require. As with ACTA, the details have just leaked, and they're pretty ridiculous. From Michael Geist's link above:

Copyright term extension. The current term of copyright law in Canada is life of the author plus 50 years. This is consistent with the term requirements under the Berne Convention. The EU is demanding that Canada add an additional 20 years by making the term life plus 70 years.

WIPO ratification. The EU is demanding that Canada respect the rights and obligations under the WIPO Internet treaties. The EU only formally ratified those treaties this week.

Anti-circumvention provisions. The EU is demanding that Canada implement anti-circumvention provisions that include a ban on the distribution of circumvention devices. There is no such requirement in the WIPO Internet treaties.

ISP Liability provisions. The EU is demanding statutory provisions on ISP liability where they act as mere conduits, cache content, or host content. ISPs would qualify for a statutory safe harbour in appropriate circumstances. There is no three-strikes and you're out language (which presumably originates with the U.S.).

Enforcement provisions. The EU is demanding that Canada establish a host of new enforcement provisions including measures to preserve evidence, ordering alleged infringers to disclose information on a wide range of issue, mandate disclosure of banking information in commercial infringement cases, allow for injunctive relief, and destruction of goods. There is also a full section on new border measures requirements.

Resale rights. The EU is demanding that Canada implement a new resale right that would provide artists with a royalty based on any resales of their works (subsequent to the first sale).
Making available or distribution rights. The EU is demanding that Canada implement a distribution or making available right to copyright owners...

Allowing countries to set their own copyright laws and policies is important. Because we've never had an evidence based copyright, and because there's growing evidence that draconian copyright laws can harm creative output, it would seem like a better solution would be to let different countries experiment with different copyright laws (or none at all...) to see what happens and what works best. Forcing all countries to align under identical copyright laws, entirely at the behest of a single industry, with provisions to regularly ratchet things up with no real review of the evidence seems immensely problematic."

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091217/1233387410.shtml

Why Do Canada And Europe Copyright Money?; TechDirt, 11/5/09

Mike Masnick, TechDirt; Why Do Canada And Europe Copyright Money?:

"We've discussed in the past the odd idea that any government should be able to copyright anything it produces, but plenty of governments still do maintain things like "crown copyright" or other similar concepts for content they create. Yet, it looks like some countries have gone one step further. They copyright their money. Yes, Michael Scott points us to a blog post from an American law professor, Eric E. Johnson, who was on a trip to Canada and was surprised to discover that they have copyright notices on their paper currency. Of course, this should make you wonder: if you counterfeit some Canadian money are you also on the hook for copyright infringement violations? Or is there some other reason for the copyright notice. Are they afraid other nations might copy the design without compensation?"

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091102/0418556762.shtml

Canada deserves spot on U.S. naughty list due to lax copyright laws; Canadian Press, 10/22/09

Canadian Press; Canada deserves spot on U.S. naughty list due to lax copyright laws:

"The new U.S. ambassador won't apologize for his country's decision to scold Canada for its lax copyright laws by placing it on a priority watch list.

David Jacobson says Canada may be America's closest friend and neighbour, but that shouldn't exempt it from respecting copyright laws that protect artists, entertainers, authors and software developers.

He suggests stronger legislation would be mutually beneficial as it will encourage innovation in both countries.

Jacobson made the comments at a Montreal conference on Canada-U.S. relations.

Wendy Noss of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association says Canada sticks out in a bad way on this naughty list which includes countries like China, Algeria, Pakistan and Russia.
She says Canada has failed for more than a decade to amend copyright laws to deal with the digital age, leaving creative industries at a loss when it comes to fighting piracy."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hKHhpEtc-DndLRhdv6OVaN8zupJw

Canada set to try again on new copyright law; Washington Post, 7/

Randall Palmer via Washington Post; Canada set to try again on new copyright law:

"The U.S. Trade Representative fingered Canada in April, putting it on its priority watch list because of growing concerns about what it sees as weak protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.

There is always a struggle between pleasing copyright holders and users, a balance that tries to recognize the modern reality of an increasingly tech-savvy population while not eliminating ownership rights protection for companies and artists."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/17/AR2009071702693.html

Digital Piracy Spreads, and Defies a Fix; The New York Times, 4/6/09

Via The New York Times: Digital Piracy Spreads, and Defies a Fix:

"Less than a week after a pirated copy of the unreleased movie “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” popped up on the Internet, federal legislators and entertainment executives presented an extraordinarily bleak picture of the damage digital piracy can inflict, and the grim prospects for limiting it.

At a Monday morning Congressional field hearing here, lawmakers and executives both described a deteriorating situation in which $20 billion annually in copyrighted movies, music and other entertainment are being lost to global piracy networks that are tolerated or encouraged by countries like China, Russia, India and — in a case that drew special attention — Canada."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/business/media/07piracy.html?_r=1&hpw

New Machines Reproduce Custom Books on Demand, Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/5/08 Issue

Via Chronicle of Higher Education: New Machines Reproduce Custom Books on Demand:

"If you wonder what the future of book publishing might look, smell, and sound like, head north to the University of Alberta's bookstore in Edmonton. There a $144,000 machine is churning out made-to-order paperbacks at a cost of a penny a page.

It's the Espresso Book Machine, which converts digital files into bound books, one order at a time, in under 15 minutes...

But the machine has limitations. It cannot print just any book. Copyright law limits the books that can be offered, the texts must be PDF's, and it can take days to get a repairman when something breaks...

In addition to the technical restrictions, however, U.S. copyright regulations require that books be in the public domain (which includes anything printed before 1922), or that the copyright holder must grant permission for reprinting. Canadian law offers more avenues for reproduction under copyright, which may explain why two Canadian universities — Alberta and McMaster University, in Ontario — are among the sites using the machine. Printers in Canada must pay a royalty fee of no more than $10 for each copy of an out-of-print book, Mr. Anderson says. The law requires books in print to carry a royalty of no more than 10.3 cents per page."

http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i15/15a00103.htm

Copyright claim to university's name `baffling', Toronto Star, 11/20/08

Via Toronto Star: Copyright claim to university's name `baffling', Councillor for Oshawa, Durham, has threatened newspapers over technology school:

"Just as the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa looks for a new name, a city councillor claims he owns the current one.

Robert Lutczyk, who sits on both the Oshawa and Durham Region councils, registered a copyright for "University of Ontario Institute of Technology" in 2005 and has recently forbidden several newspapers from printing the phrase under threat of legal action.

He's also registered "Medical School in Oshawa" and "Medical School at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology," neither of which exist...

Intellectual property lawyer Ziad Katul said the university itself has registered a trademark with UOIT and a slogan, which it owns. Lutczyk's copyright does not prevent the school, or the media, from using the name, he said."

http://www.thestar.com/article/540168

Canadian election Copyright Pledge gains steam - Boing.Boing.net, 10/2/08

Canadian election Copyright Pledge gains steam:
"...The pledge again: Will you commit to a balanced approach to copyright reform that reflects the views of all Canadians by pledging:
1. To respect the rights of creators and consumers.
2. Not to support any copyright bill that undermines or weakens the Copyright Act’s users rights.
3. To fully consult with Canadians before introducing any copyright reform bill and to conduct inclusive, national hearings on any tabled bill."
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/02/canadian-election-co.html