Torrent Freak distributed this really interesting article about the current state of piracy in Canada and how their lack of enforcement is making their country a haven for pirates. The article states “Canadians download more unauthorized music than residents of any other country, and two-and-one-half times as much as Americans’. The problem is not unique to Canada, but still a significant one for their entertainment and music industry.
From Torrent
Freak…"IIPA: Canada is a magnet for “rogue” sites and persistent pirates". By
Ernesto on February 10 2014 (no copyright infringement intended).
The MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment industry
groups are calling out Canada for its lack of effective anti-piracy
enforcement. The groups label Canada a magnet for pirate sites and also want
Internet providers to punish subscribers who repeatedly download
copyright-infringing content.
The International Intellectual Property Alliance
(IIPA) has just published its latest submission to the U.S. Government,
providing an overview of countries it believes should better protect the
interests of the copyright industry.
The IIPA, which includes a wide range of
copyright groups including the MPAA, RIAA, BSA and ESA, has listed its
complaints against a whole host of countries. As in previous years, Canada was
discussed in detail with the recommendation to put it on the 2014 Special 301
‘watch list’.
One of the main grievances against Canada is
that the country offers a home to many sites which the copyright industries
label as “rogue” businesses. This includes the recently shut down isohunt.com as
well as other popular torrent sites such as torrentz.eu and kickass.to.
“Even after the shuttering of Isohunt, Canada is
still the home to some of the world’s most popular Internet sites dedicated to
piracy, including torrentz.eu and kickass.to, which garnered rankings of third
and second place, respectively, on one of the most widely accessed listings of
the world’s most popular illicit BitTorrent sites,” IIPA writes.
The copyright holders further mention the
linking sites cuevana.tv, free-tv-video-online.me, and solarmovie.so as having
Canadian connections, as well as the smaller torrent sites fenopy.se and
monova.org. Without proper enforcement action against them, Canada remains very
attractive to these allegedly infringing sites, they claim.
“It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Canada
remains a magnet for sites whose well-understood raison d’être is to facilitate
and enable massive unauthorized downloading of pirated versions of feature
films, TV shows, recorded music, entertainment software, and other copyright
materials,” IIPA writes.
“The largest of these Canadian-hosted sites
attract scores of millions of unique visitors every month, and their corrosive
effects on legitimate markets are felt worldwide,” they add.
The United States should encourage Canada to
take action against these sites, the industry groups recommend. Without proper
action the country will not just remain a safe haven for infringing websites,
but also a breeding ground for new generations of Internet pirates.
According to the IIPA, current policies have resulted
in widespread piracy among Canadian Internet users, with instances twice as
frequent as in the United States. “In this environment, it is not surprising
that Canadians continue to demonstrate a formidable propensity to patronize
illegal online sources of copyright material, thus stunting the availability
and growth of legal alternatives,” IIPA writes. “A report released in September
2012 found that, on a per-capita basis, Canadians download more unauthorized
music than residents of any other country, and two-and-one-half times as much
as Americans,” the groups add.
“Canadians continue to demonstrate a formidable
propensity to patronize illegal online sources of copyright material, thus
stunting the availability and growth of legal alternatives.”
The industry groups further recommend that
Internet providers should partner with copyright holders to tackle the ongoing
piracy problems. While some ISPs already forward infringement notices to their
customers, they note that repeated infringers go unpunished.
Due to this “glaring weakness” the current
copyright infringement warnings sent out by some ISPs are not believed to be
very effective.
“Although more and more notices of infringement
are sent by right holders and forwarded by service providers to their customers
each year, the providers do not even correlate the notices with individual
subscribers to know which are repeat infringers,” IIPA writes.
“To treat the first-time violator identically
with the serial offender jeopardizes any deterrent effect the notices might
otherwise achieve,” they add.
The groups recommend that the U.S. Government
urges Canada to implement “strong legal incentives” for local ISPs to take
action against these persistent pirates by teaming up with copyright holders.
The above is just the tip of the iceberg for Canada. Among other things,
the groups also call for stronger border protections and hefty jail sentences
for copyright infringers. This is not the first time that Canada has been
called out on copyright. Based on similar recommendations the U.S. Government
has placed its northern neighbor on the intellectual property watch-list for
several years in a row.
The IIPA’s full 2014 Special 301 recommendation report is available here. This also includes assessments from more than two dozen other countries, including Argentina, Brazil, China, Italy, Russia, Spain and Switzerland.
