p2pnet.net News:- Canada’s CIPPIC (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic) says it’s, “cautiously optimistic” regarding government plan to amend the Copyright Act.

The current proposal is better than the, “one-sided approach to copyright we saw in the May, 2004, Interim Report on Copyright Reform of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage,” says CIPPIC lawyer David Fewer.

But all is not rosy, and, “Our privacy is under attack, our right and ability to use content we’ve paid for is under attack,” says CIPPIC’s Alex Cameron. “We’d like to see the government go further in recognizing that technology can be used by copyright owners in a way that is harmful to individuals, downstream creators and innovators who build upon digital works, and to the good of the public at large.”

“Sharing is not something the Internet created, but is a healthy aspect of our culture,” says digital-copyright.ca’s Russell McOrmond. “Our government should be supporting creators who adopt modern business and distribution models that harness the value of sharing, rather than only protecting those who oppose sharing like the outdated major label recording industry.“

CIPPIC is also concerned that the new Copyright Act would still contain, “excessive statutory damages provisions vis-à-vis individuals, educational institutions and libraries,” says Fewer. They, “relieve successful plaintiffs from the need to show that they have suffered damages from copyright infringement, granting them instead the automatic right to damages ranging from $500 to $20,000 per instance of infringement,” he says

“These provisions have worked a real mischief in negotiations between copyright collectives and public institutions like governments, educational institutions and libraries.

“It’s like negotiating with a gun pointed at your head.”

In the context of file-sharing, the statutory damages provisions mean individuals with 1,000 songs on their hard-drives could face between $500,000 and $20,000,000 in statutory damages if they were found to have infringed copyright.

“These excessive statutory damages provisions can allow copyright owners to intimidate and bully easy settlements out of individuals who may have done nothing wrong,” says Fewer

And indeed, using legal threats is one of the most valuable weapons in the armoury the RIAA wields against people who refuse to be ripped off by inferior and over-priced music industry product, preferring to use the p2p networks.

RIAA stands for Recording Industry Association of America which is, like the Canadian clone the CRIA, owned by the Big Four record label cartel.

The cartel is using the RIAA in an unashamed bid to try to sue people into buying mp3s it supplies to corporate music services. Victims always settle before they get anywhere near a court because they can’t afford to take the multi-billion-dollar music industry on.

The CRIA wants to be able to do the same.

The government also wants to drop its proposal to legislate an extended educational license for the Net, says CIPPIC.

“The government claims that the issue has proven ‘complex and contentious,” according to Fewer. And, “For good reason. If implemented, the Heritage Committee’s Interim Report proposal on Internet licensing would have cost Canadians millions of dollars for publicly available content. It was a bad idea from the start.”

CIPPIC says it’s also troubled by the government’s continued failure to create a regime for licensing Internet radio.

“This is a great alternative means for distributing Canadian content,” states Fewer. “The government keeps saying that it cares about Canadian creators” but, “has provided no indication of its intent to deal with this important issue anytime soon.”

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 27th, 2005 at 7:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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