Recording Industry Keeps Quiet About Canadian IsoHunt Lawsuit; Didn't Want To Admit Canada Has Strong Copyright

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Michael Geist has the news that last year, at some point, the recording industry filed a lawsuit against IsoHunt in Canada. There’s already been an ongoing lawsuit against IsoHunt in the US, but not too many people realized there was a similar lawsuit in Canada. And that’s for a specific reason: the recording industry did their best to keep it quiet. The lawsuit was filed just a few weeks before Canada’s latest attempt at copyright reform was put forth and a big part of the narrative for why such a law was needed was because Canadian copyright laws weren’t strong enough to go after a site like IsoHunt. So, making a big stink about a lawsuit — under those existing copyright laws — against IsoHunt would have hurt that story… Of course, this raises the question: if existing copyright laws were strong enough, why did politicians and industry lobbyists claim they were not?

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Companies: cria, isohunt

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Comments on “Recording Industry Keeps Quiet About Canadian IsoHunt Lawsuit; Didn't Want To Admit Canada Has Strong Copyright”

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28 Comments
:Lobo Santo (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Oh, of course we can beat the lobbyists. Just, not at their own game. Like that old bit of wisdom goes: if winning the game is impossible, change the game.

I wonder perhaps if it will take a massive rally (? la Tunisia & Egypt) to get the US Wall Street-oriented power structure turned back around to “for the people, by the people.”

jilocasin (profile) says:

Re: Re: Nice idea, but it'll never work.

That’s a nice idea but it’ll never work.

Number 1, ‘become informed’:

Always a good idea.

Number 2, ‘stop buying the product and services of any companies involved with those lobbyists’

First problem, unless you run off into the mountains (desert) and live an entirely self sufficient existance you can’t avoid lobbiests. The only companies that don’t utilize lobiests, wish they were big enough to hire a few. If you managed to only buy products from companies that don’t have lobiests, they would just pass laws making it illegal _not_ to do business with them. (You think I’m joking, then you haven’t been paying attention. Think Apple & appstore or Bose suing resellers.)

Number 3, ‘get everyone you know to stop buying the products and services of any companies involved with those lobbyists’

See answer to number 2.

The only way to stop lobbiests are to have our government represent the people and do what’s best for the country as a whole. This would be a marked change from the current system of padding their own bank accounts.

Anonymous Coward says:

Actually, Canadian copyright laws are weak, and punish non-pirating users by putting all sorts of surcharges on blank media and media devices. The situation also encourages piracy, and Canada is more and more finding itself on the outside on copyright issues.

Canada is one of the biggest trading partners with the US, and I think they will realize that they sort of need to get in line with overall policy, rather than being a haven for file traders (and war deserters…)

crade (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Actually, no, they aren’t. The encourages piracy retoric is just a load of crap supported by nothing. Our levy is pretty much a non-issue altogether. There are special “music” cd’s that you can pay extra for if you really want to, and having the levy supposedly allows Canadians to make personal copies of music we already have a license for (which is allowed in most other places anyway). Doesn’t do anything really. Our piracy numbers aren’t higher than the U.S. or anything, so I don’t see why anyone would think it encourages piracy.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

What is the opposite of discouraging piracy? Null or encouragement. If you tax the people, you create a right, a feeling of having paid the tax, so they can do what they like. Personal file trading with impunity, no nasty fair use requirements, just give it away to anyone and everyone. No issues, everyone paid the tax.

It certainly isn’t doing anything to lower piracy, is it? Well, possibly to re-classify file trading as not being piracy, because it’s has been taxed into legal status.

crade (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

You don’t seem to know how the levy works. It doesn’t work like that. There is no free trading with impunity. In fact giving a copy to anyone is expressly forbidden and reinforced again in the part that discusses the levy.

I agree it isn’t doing anything to lower piracy, as I said, it is basically useless, but thats ok, we are doing fine on that front. The DMCA, ridiculous lawsuits, 3 strikes and all that other crap isn’t doing anything to lower piracy either.

crade (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

Because this annoys me so much, here is the part of the copyright act that discusses limitations to the private copying exception (whole thing here http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/showtdm/cs/C-42/ )
Notice both distributing in any way for trade and communicating to the public not allowed.
:

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act
described in that subsection is done for the purpose
of doing any of the following in relation to
any of the things referred to in paragraphs
(1)(a) to (c):
(a) selling or renting out, or by way of trade
exposing or offering for sale or rental;
(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose
of trade;
(c) communicating to the public by telecommunication;
or
(d) performing, or causing to be performed,
in public.

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