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Behind the Scenes of Canada's Movie Piracy Law
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jun 12, 2007 07:43 AM
from the backroom-handshakes-and-money-exchanges dept.
from the backroom-handshakes-and-money-exchanges dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist's latest Toronto Star column features a behind-the-scenes look at how Canada got its movie piracy bill based on internal government documents obtained under the Access to Information Act. Few will be shocked to learn that Hollywood lobbyists provided draft legislation months earlier as part of their barrage of lobbying, though the documents show that advisers to the Minister were skeptical that the proposal would accomplish anything. From the article: 'The industry's lobby efforts were clearly successful. Ignoring the inconsistent claims, the absence of evidence that Canadian films are being affected, the contrary internal advice, and the bracing reality that Hollywood has acknowledged that the U.S. is by far the largest source of illegal camcording worldwide notwithstanding its movie piracy legislation, Bill C-59 is expected to sail through Parliament. In doing so, Ottawa is sending Canadians two messages. The first is what drew the industry standing ovation - unauthorized camcording will not be tolerated in Canada even if it means diverting law enforcement resources from health and safety issues to movie theatres. The second is that private meetings, foreign pressures and lobbyist drafted bills is how law gets made in Canada.'"
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News: Canadian Theatre Chain Sued for Abusive Search 374 comments
An anonymous reader writes "A Canadian theater chain has been sued for an abusive search for camcording equipment. A Montreal woman is seeking $60,000 in damages for the search, which comes after the Canadian government caved to US pressure and enacted anti-camcording legislation."
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uh... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd rather not do that... to me, health and safety is worth more than money.
Re: (Score:2)
Then you obviously dont have enough yet.
Keep it real (Score:3, Funny)
Reap it keel. (Score:2)
well, now each theatre has at least 2 cops (Score:5, Informative)
Greater lineups? You bet! However, it's not so much the lineups as the feeling that a little bit of dignity is robbed away from you.
Parent
Re:well, now each theatre has at least 2 cops (Score:4, Insightful)
And of course, this will all be blamed on the evil pirates. Instead of adding police state methodes on top of overpriced tickets and crappy movies without a script worth the name.
Parent
What are you...a communist?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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Just another day in the 51st State (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think its more along the lines of "Stephen Harper as his head shoved so far up Bush's ass that when Bush speaks, Harper can see his adenoids".
This is what you get when you combine a bunch of red-neck fundamentalists (the Reform Party) with a bunch of burned-out hacks desperate for power at any cost (what was left after the original Conservatives imploded).
Maybe we should all just separate from Ottawa.
Re:Just another day in the 51st State (Score:5, Funny)
My favourite version of this quote is, "Stephen Harper is so far up George Bush's ass that he can almost see Tony Blair's feet."
Parent
Changes in my life (Score:4, Interesting)
in the words of Seinfeld (Score:2)
...not that there's anything wrong with that...
a film makers job (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. Whatever you say there, spark (Score:2)
I don't know about you Canadians, but if I lived there this would piss me off beyond comprehension. (It still pisses me off even though I don't live there, but if I did live there and my wife died at a car accident scene because no cops were around and someone else ran into her car....yeah. It wou
Provincial yawn... (Score:2)
Without the consent of the theatre manager? (Score:5, Insightful)
The bill, at Bill C-59 [parl.gc.ca] says that it's only a crime if the theatre manager says so.
This allows the manager to set his own camera up in the projection room, which is conveient, but not as convenient as running the film through a scanner or the DVD through a duplicator.
Perhaps the drafters think that theatre managers can't be bribed?
--dave
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Wouldn't it be something a trade union would object to, as only a manager can brak the law with impunity (;-))
--dave
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Actually she won't: the great majority of copies are made using professional scanners/duplicators, from "screener" DVDs and distributed films. Only a small number are done by amateurs, ofen in the third world where bribes are cheap but scanners are expensive
--dave
How they got their law: (Score:5, Insightful)
No one should be the least bit surprised. Its how governments work now.
There too? (Score:3, Insightful)
Overcompensation... (Score:3, Insightful)
The second is that private meetings, foreign pressures and lobbyist drafted bills is how law gets made in Canada. Unless the one who posted this has been living in a bomb shelter for the past 50 years... Has anyone ever noticed that businesses have been dictating laws since the inception of time? Coca Cola and others did similar things in Latin America once upon a time, Airbus in France, and countless other companies here in the US. Get over it.
Why get over it? (Score:2)
but american idol is far more fun and far less effort.
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As usual, it's the best law money can buy (Score:2)
Despite no proven detrimental effect to Canada they have passed laws to restrict behaviour and use tax money to enforce the restrictions, all at the say so of corporate interests.
This pretty much sums up what I hate about the world right now. Democracy is dead.
Not a big impact (Score:2, Insightful)
Went for touchdown, got field goal (Score:5, Informative)
No, cops won't stop doing policing over it. They are certainly not going to drop a car chase or a stakeout to go pick up a kid with a camcorder. That's just silly.
As for the thin edge of the wedge, the conservatives are not doing well in the polls, and they only managed a minority government last time after catching the liberals in what they billed the scandal of the century. They are not going to be around for much longer anyway. Then we will get the do-nothing liberals, and that's what htey wil do - nothing.
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Re:Went for touchdown, got field goal (Score:4, Insightful)
The liberals will generally do nothing about anything, anytime. The conservatives will screw things up worse and sell out to the US at the drop of a drool-covered hat. The NDP doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell at getting elected, but if they did, they'd attack business to the extent that the economy would tank. Then there's the Bloc, which should be illegal since they're a regional separatist party dedicated to destroying the country. Ironically, the Green party (which should by definition be a dedicated single-issue party) actually has a very comprehensive and well thought-out platform, but they haven't got a single seat in their history.
All things considered, doing nothing is not bad. Not good, but not bad.
Parent
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Well, when I look at the laws created recently, I dunno if a government doing nothing would be such a bad alternative. We have sensible laws in place, so executive and judicative would be enough for my tastes. Generally, when you look around, you only see more and more incredibly insane laws spring up which are either unenforcable or just against the interests of the general population.
So yes, a government that is unable, unwill
"Copyright reform" still a government priority (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope you know something I don't. With regards to the anti-camcording bill, the head of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association[2] said [michaelgeist.ca] it "is really the first step - not only for the movie industry - where the government has shown it will seriously address the whole area of intellectual property theft." Reports are [michaelgeist.ca] that the government intends to go ahead with a DMCA-style "reform". Bev Oda, one of the two ministers responsible for copyright, has previously said [blogspot.com] Canada will ratify international treaties, implying that includes the WIPO treaty on which the DMCA is based[1]. The 2007-2008 Report [tbs-sct.gc.ca] on Plans and Priorities lists "copyright reform" as a priority to which the government has "previously committed". Given the
On the up side, now is not the time to give up: the significant opposition to stronger copyright provisions seems be having an effect. While the RPP's statement on the issue points towards anti-circumvention legislation and a flawed conception of copyright as a simple conflict between creators and consumers (when in fact there are creators on both sides, and citizens and the public interest are directly affected), it avoids committing to any paricular course of action:
I wrote to her in January and received a similarly ambiguous reply: "the Government is continuing to consider the concerns of all Canadians . . . The Government wants to ensure that the rights of Canadian creators are adequately protected by law, and that these rights are balanced with the ability of the public to access works."
[1] I should point out that Canada is under no obligation to ratify the WIPO treaty. Even if we do, the treaty's [wipo.int] anti-circumvention provisions don't require all of the excesses of the DMCA:
[2] For the most part we don't make Canadian films, we distribute American ones. For the distributors, maximalist intellectual monopoly laws are in their interests even if they inhibit the production of Canadian films.
Parent
Canadian politics (Score:2)
Isn't politics pretty much like this everywhere though? If politicians don't actually listen to people and take actions (albeit yes they should be able to discriminate between ordinary Joe citizen and a paid lobbyist) - what exactly are they there for?
The movie industry nievely thinks that having an extra law will reduce the piracy - it won't - even with greater enforcement the pirates will fin
Harpers Bizzare (Score:5, Insightful)
Wonder if he's going to give the Canadian people back their CD levies? ($0.29 per unit for Audio Cassette tape (40min or longer); $0.77 per unit for CD-R Audio, CD-RW-Audio & MiniDisc; $0.21 per unit for CD-R, CD-RW (non audio) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy [wikipedia.org] )
Stop voting for people like this. It only encourages them.
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IMHO, the Canadian political landscape was significantly damaged by the merger of the PC and CA parties.
Does it really matter? (Score:2)
Foreign Interference?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought this whole business was remarkably clever of the Canadian government. They managed to sidestep a messy showdown with Hollywood by outlawing something that isn't a problem. Seriously, our movie theatres are not giant igloos, and pirating movies on a camcorder hasn't been an issue for a decade or more (has it ever been?). These days pirated movies usually come from stolen or "borrowed" cinema masters.
Given the choice between having Hollywood lobbying against something stupid, like a camcorder ban, or something more serious, like a DMCA equivalent, I'd much rather pacify them with the stupid stuff.
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Re:Damn Straight! (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a clever move to toss them a bone rather than having them agitate for your entire skeleton, especially when the bone you toss is meaningless and costs you nothing.
What inferno? The MPAA can't do jack against another country, and they aren't going to stop releasing movies in Canada if this doesn't pass.
Did you honestly just say "the MPAA can't do jack against another country" without giggling? Why don't you ask a Swede how they feel about the MPAA's influence in their country? You might come away better informed.
Canada's exhibitor industry exists only by the leave of the various American movie associations who sell them content. I've been e-mailing back and forth with a friend who works for one of the major studios here, and I can tell you that around their office they're damn thankful at how this turned out because the alternative meant possible industry action, which threatens their paycheques directly (she's in exhibitor relations).
In this situation, the Americans hold all the cards. They own the movies, and in most cases they own the movie theatres.
Negotiating with bullies so that they're under the impression you've conceded to their demands when in fact nothing has changed is a clever move. It's called diplomacy, and it works.
Parent
Useless law - provinces will ignore it (Score:3, Insightful)
Provinces are responsible for law enforcement - they'll just ignore it as another idiotic Ottawa publicity stunt.
This is the fundamental problem of capitalism... (Score:2)
To which Bush added (Score:3, Funny)
To which Bush added : "Canada is now officially part of North America"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"What the Canadian people really want are two Liberal parties - one to vote into office when the other becomes too corrupt to governern."
movies vs guns vs common sense (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish governments and big business on *both* sides of the border would devote as much attention, time and money to the issue of illegal handgun imports into Canada as they do about movie piracy. I don't know about the rest of you people, but I am a lot more afraid of somebody walking into a local movie theatre here in Canada with an illegal handgun than an illegal camcorder. Are movies worth more than lives anymore?
The other issue to me, one that Hollywood & the studios and others never address, is that for me and my family (two adults, two children) to go see a movie in a theatre today, with admission, parking, car gas, popcorn, drinks, etc, etc, I'll spend at least $100. I don't have that kind of money to go as often as I would like too. Sorry Hollywood, but this month the car needed fixing and the kids needed dental work. I am sure most of you have similar stories. I am also pretty peaved that the very fews times I do go to a movie theatre, I have to sit through several minutes of commercials for an event I PAY to attend. This turns me off completely. Are you guys litening out there?
But I will and do buy DVDs.
With everybody buying larger and larger TVs, home theatre systems, etc, etc, why not release DVDs of new movies at the same time as they are released in theatres? I imagine you would kill off a lot of piracy right there and then. I don't have the big screen LCD TV myself (yet), but someday when I do, I'd rather stay home and watch movies in the comfort of my own house.
Movie distribution today is bascially a very flawed business model due to many factors, including some of those listed above,a nd trying to place the blame on piracy will do nothing to help. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Lobbyist-supplied legislation is normal... (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't mean that this law was in any way useful or good (it isn't), but the fact that it was written by a lobbyist is not inherently evil. If the FSF had pushed for a bill requiring the govt. to consider Free Software for all procurement purchases over $X, I don't think Slashdot would be screaming.
Of course, that does not absolve lawmakers from their responsibility to look over any proposed legislation and suggest it be modified or tanked...
SirWired
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