How to get Canadian piracy laws passed?
Canadian law professor Michael Geist has been on a roll lately, alerting the public to the ways that Canadian industry lobbies are shaping policy related to intellectual property laws. The movie and music businesses have long demanded a “Canadian DMCA,” and it now looks like a Parliamentary committee supports their ideas. Unfortunately, as Geist points out, the committee members are relying on some bad data. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill bad data, either; this is the stuff that’s been left in the back of the fridge so long it’s grown moldy. Let’s take a closer look inside the sausage factory to see exactly how industry groups pressure legislators to support their particular agenda. The report in question comes from the Industry Committee, and it’s called (seriously) “Counterfeiting and Piracy Are Theft.” It lays out a whole host of suggested rules, regulations, and penalties to address the issue, but the entire report seems premised on some shaky data.
