Patry on RIAA - "Canada Insulted Again"

Here is an essential-reading posting from Bill Patry, great American copyright treatise author. It concerns the US Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus (IPAC) and the RIAA.

Here's an extract. "Chapter 12" refers to the US Copyright Act, and Chapter 12 is the guts of the dreaded DMCA, which Bruce Lehman, its architect, also now admits "didn't work out very well."

...Once chapter 12 is implemented into domestic law, it is U.S. corporate copyright interests that will shape what consumer goods can be used in your country and how citizens of your country will be able to access and use lawfully acquired copies of works. No legislature that is amending its copyright law should do so without understanding the momentous delegation of power they are handing to U.S. corporate interests.

This is not a piracy issue, it is nothing remotely resembling piracy. It is Orwellian to claim otherwise. The designation of Canada as a scofflaw because it hasn't implemented chapter 12 of title 17 is not only an abuse of language, but also a direct attack on the sovereignty of another country to determine what is in the public interest of its own citizens. Canada has more than adequate laws against real piracy, and as Howard Knopf had pointed out, its laws are more generous toward authors than is U.S. law. No legislature in the world should abdicate its responsibility to protect the public interest by vesting the private sector with the powers granted in chapter 12 of title 17. But Canadian abdication is exactly what is being proposed by U.S. interests, the false justification being that Canada is a pirate haven because it hasn't implemented the U.S. DMCA.

Canadian policy makers would be unwise not to listen to Bill Patry and Bruce Lehman - both of whom know the DMCA for what is.

Let's hope our Canadian "IP Caucus" is paying close attention.

HK

Canada, Israel, 301, Pro Patria and Pro Patry

Bill Patry has a great blog today about Israel, Canada and the U.S. "301" watch list, or "wish list", as Bill calls it. He says:

Of course, even large countries like Canada have been threatened: the U.S. is reported to have told Canada that the U.S. won’t do anything Canada wants in other areas unless Canada adheres to the WIPO treaties in the exact form that the U.S. has, and that such implementation is the highest priority in U.S.–Canada relations. That’s ridiculous bluster. I hope that the example of Israel, a much smaller and very vulnerable nation, standing up to the IIPA inspires the Canadians in drafting their anticipated copyright reform legislation. And one thing that might strengthen Canadian resolve is the experience of Israel with the migration of the watch list into an evolving wish list.

Read his whole blog. Canada should welcome the constructive attention of a great American scholar such as Bill Patry. With a few notable exceptions, Canadian copyright scholars have been too quiet for too long on too many of these issues.

HK

IIPA, DMCA, 301, and Canadian Copyright Sovereignty

Canada is now on the IIPA "priority watch list."

This is clearly a blatant bullying attempt to influence domestic Canadian copyright reform, and the allegations are very wrong - especially since Canada already provides much stronger copyright protection in many important respects than the USA.

But don't take my word for it....

Here's a brilliant take on the IIPA, DMCA and Canada, from Bill Patry. This is a MUST to read. Bill is the author of a new and very important seven volume treatise on American copyright law and has taken a great interest in Canadian issues...

As Bill reports:

So what are the IIPA’s beefs? The principal ones ostensibly concern Canada’s failure to implement the 1996 WIPO treaties. Examination of the IIPA’s 301 reports reveals, though, that what it has in mind is simply adoption of U.S. law, not amendments to Canada law that are consistent with the treaties obligations. The WIPO treaties modestly require only remedies for circumvention of Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) that involve the exercise of exclusive rights. Although the U.S. attempted to have the treaties include remedies for circumvention of access controls, other countries rejected the U.S.’s efforts. One would never know this from the IIPA’s reports, which mix the two together and lead readers to believe both are required; they are not.

...

The intense, negative reaction of Canadian citizens to IIPA’s efforts is well-taken. Why any government would want to adopt approaches that have been admitted to be a dismal failure in the U.S. by the law’s own ardent author, and that are not required by the WIPO treaties is a mystery.

Read all of Bill's blog. More to come on this for sure.....

HK