Statutory Damages - Canada, USA v. Almost Everywhere Else in the World

Michael Geist has a good post today on statutory minimum damages and how Canada is so atypical in this respect.

I did a post in 2008 about Israel's clever statutory damages regime, which features a max of about US $27,000 and no minimum. This apparently also applies to commercial infringers.

Israel - which depends more on the USA than any other country in the world - indeed for its very existence - has learned that it will get serious respect and support from the USA only by having a mind of its own and not simply imitating America and doing whatever America asks without serious questioning.

Or, is Canada's rush toward American copyright values, part of the "inferiority complex" that American diplomats suggest we have?

HK