Oh Canada, Our Home And Native Land Of DVD Pirates

from the who-woulda-thunk-it? dept

When you think of hot spots for DVD pirating, Asia is probably the first geography that comes to mind. Canada is probably one of the last, but it turns out that our northern neighbor is home to more than just American drug prescriptions. It seems Canada is also among the world’s leading hosts of DVD pirates, where laws — or lack of them — make it harder for Hollywood to ferret out those who sell their copied movies and TV shows online. Indeed, the RIAA and MPAA have not had it easy in Canada, as courts there have wisely ruled against these industries when they’ve tried to get ISPs to fork over royalties and names. Not surprisingly, politicians there want to amend the country’s Copyright Act to make ISPs cooperate more in finding pirates. Preventing massive illegal sales of copyrighted material is certainly noble, but it’s a slippery slope when it comes to these definitions. Considering the history Canadian lawmakers have with hairbrained internet legislation, we wouldn’t be put it past them to cross that line again.


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Comments on “Oh Canada, Our Home And Native Land Of DVD Pirates”

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4 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

No Subject Given

is a search warrant enough to break EPIC? That’s interesting. I wonder if the cops have enough safeguards in place for the ever-growing wealth of personal information obtained through warrants. While I am employed by the guys who built the computer system, I just can’t trust that they’d actually remove the personal data once they get it.

But EPIC is the reason that ISPs don’t want to hand out info without a gun/warrant in their faces. I hope the penalties are stiff.

Considering that less than 6% of ‘loss’ is through piracy, and that most pirates wouldn’t have otherwise bought from the ‘copyright holders’ anyway, why the hell is this so important to you, Mike? It’s small potatoes to anyone but the notoriously arrogant, myopic and egoentric CRIA anyway.

Odd that it’s a new story that revenue isn’t increasing ENOUGH each year, odder still that it’s being picked up and promoted by you, Mike, who normally isn’t so focused. Do ya like jackboot prints on your neck, Mike? That’s why I moved home.

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