According to a Globe and Mail article from earlier this year, a Montreal-based company called Canipre has begun collecting evidence on over 1 million Canadians who illegally download. Caipre, an anti-piracy enforcement company that provides forensic services to copyright-holders within Canada, even had one of its clients before Federal Court requesting over 1000 IP addresses that will allow them to identify illegal downloaders of their content. It should come as no surprise that this client happens to be a powerful American movie studio, requesting information from an Ontario-based service-provider. But does this mean Canada’s cracking down in terms of illegal downloads?
Copyright cases such as these occur often in the States, this is a new chapter for Canada. While Americans can be fined for huge amounts of money, the recently-passed Bill C-11 restricts the fines for Canadians to a maximum of $5000. This was implemented specifically so the Canadian courts would not become bogged-down with thousands of copyright infringement cases. Some argue that Canada simply doesn’t have the culture for such litigation. However, Canadians do view the illegality of copyright infringement very lightly.
This brings into question whether, through measures such as Bill C-11, we are almost promoting or allowing Canadians to continue illegal downloads, despite the actions of companies such as Caipre (who, I might add, struggle in court). There are penalties, but very small ones, and the odds that you will have to face these consequences is slim. Studies show that Canada is 4th in the world for most illegal downloads of music, but on a per capita basis, we beat out the top 3. This means that on a personal level, the average Canadian downloads almost 2.5x more music than the average American. This has lead to American pressure on Canada to toughen up and change it’s approach. But Canada hasn’t, and continues to allow illegal downloads of not just music, but all types of digital content. Companies such as Caipre simply can’t compete with the embedded culture of tolerance in Canada.
Sources
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/anti-piracy-firm-targeting-canadians-who-download-illegally/article11877622/
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/20/music-piracy-canada-top-countries_n_1899752.html
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