Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson says current copyright laws against camcorded movie bootlegging are just fine.
After threats from Hollywood to delay opening box office dates for the movies it distributes to Canada, the country to our North has responded in kind to the warnings.
Initially taken aback by the heated rhetoric, Canada is now on the offensive to counter Hollywood’s claims.
Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said recently that the current laws the country already has on the books are enough to effectively combat piracy in his country.
"I do point out to people that the country is not completely bereft of laws in this area," he said.
Laws already in place for camcording a movie for commercial distribution under the federal Copyright Act call for a $1-million fine and up to5 years in prison.
But, as is usually the case with Hollywood, it’s apparently not enough.
Hollywood wants even tougher laws, with a series of punishment and fines it has yet to spell out.
They allege that Canada is now a major source of film piracy, even going so far as to place it alongside Russia and Chian as one of the world’s hotbeds of piracy.
The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association says piracy in the country accounted for some 20% of camcorded copies of DVDs worldwide in 2005, and was also responsible for $118 million in losses.
"What we’re dealing with here is organized crime," said Doug Frith, the president of the association, which represents the American film industry’s interests in Canada.
He complains that the copyright law as it now exists is too burdensome because it’s difficult to prove that each case of illegal movie camcording is done so for commercial reasons.
More often than not movies are simply distributed for free over P2P and file-sharing networks without any attempt to make a buck.
Hollywood wants to change it so that merely pirating a movie in and of itself without concern for profit is a crime. But, what I’d like to know is where you draw the line? If a make a CAM, go home and just watch it on my TV am I just as liable as a guy who takes it home to put up on BitTorrent? I doubt Hollywood cares but, hopefully the Canadian Govt. does.
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