Canadians caught downloading illegal copies of music and movies online could be slapped with a penalty of $500 under new federal copyright legislation to overhaul the Copyright Act of Canada. The act was last updated in 1997, four years before the introduction of the iPod.
The long-anticipated amendments, which Industry Minister Jim Prentice said are needed to bring Canada up to date with the rest of the digital world, triggered a flurry of heated reactions among consumers, artists and the entertainment industry Thursday. They also raised the question of who will have to play the role of copyright cop on the Internet.
Industry groups applauded the government for finally tabling the legislation, which they say will help to protect the intellectual property of thousands of artists and distributors.
Critics say the new legislation too closely resembles the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has been criticized as too stacked against consumers in favour of rights holders such as the movie and recording industries. They fear it could force ordinary Canadians to pay thousands of dollars in penalties for copying their own legally purchased music to CDs or uploading videos to sharing sites such as YouTube.
"This is a unique made-in-Canada approach to copyright reform," Mr. Prentice told reporters during a news conference on Parliament Hill yesterday. "This bill balances the rights of creators on one hand and consumers on the other."
The bill emphasizes cracking down on those Internet users who upload and share files, setting much higher penalties than for downloaders.
Catharine Saxberg, executive director of the Canadian Music Publishers Association, said the new legislation is an important first step toward recognizing the importance of intellectual property rights in Canada. "Canada punches far above its weight internationally in terms of our intellectual property industries and we have long needed the government to recognize that, so hopefully this law will be the beginning of an ongoing recognition of the products of the mind and creative endeavours," she said.
But some artists were quick to criticize chastise the new legislation.
"The question is, who gains from this bill?" said Brendan Canning, a member of the Canadian Music Creators Coalition and a co-founder of the band Broken Social Scene. "It's not musicians. Musicians don't need lawsuits..… What we do need is a government that is willing to sit down with all the stakeholders and craft a balanced copyright policy for Canada that will not repeat the mistakes made in the United States."
The current Copyright Act allows for a maximum fine of $20,000 for each instance of copyright infringement, whether downloading or uploading, although Canadian file sharers have yet to face the same lawsuits that have been launched by record companies in the United States.
Under the new legislation, the maximum amount of statutory damages a court could enforce would be $500 for all infringements contained in a lawsuit, although a judge could still award other penalties.
What has some critics especially concerned about the bill is that uploaders and anyone caught hacking "digital locks" — such as copy controls or digital rights management (DRM) technology — could face damages of up to $20,000. The digital lock provisions could lead to thousands of dollars in penalties for average Canadians, said University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist.
"Fundamentally, it really has a direct impact on what people can do with all sorts of consumer products … that are now subject to certain limitations with potentially huge damage awards for Canadians that violate the rules," Prof. Geist said.
"All Canadians should be worried. The digital lock provisions, which are really the core of this legislation, are in many ways worse than the U.S. [laws]."
Prof. Geist has become and unofficial spokesman for less regulation in copyright enforcement. The Facebook group he helped start — called Fair Copyright for Canada — has attracted more than 43,000 members and has spawned a series of regional chapters across the country. The group was instrumental in creating a groundswell of grassroots support to derail the last set of proposed changes to the Copyright Act.
