UNLIKELY BEDFELLOWS Microsoft and Apple have asked the US Government to put Canada on its priority blacklist of intellectual property crooks, saying the country isn’t doing enough to prevent their products being ripped off.
But the Government decided against it and Canada narrowly missed being included on the list of the usual prime suspects – China, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Egypt, India, Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela.
So, for the fourth year running, Canada remains in the second division of copyright crooks, along with Belarus, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, South Korea, Kuwait, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) blacklist – drawn up in February but only just published – is the first step in a process that can lead to international trade sanctions. The organisation, representing companies including Apple and Microsoft, says that Canada’s ‘chronic failure’ to modernise its copyright legislation has made it a global centre for bootleg movies and pirated software and had wanted the US Government to put Canada on the priority list.
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Correction Canada’s refusal to accept an American style copyright legislation has protected its citizens from being sued by corporation in an extortionist fashion. It has also prevented it from making criminals of citizens for what should be a civil matter not a criminal one. What the united states has to realize is that the more they try and allow big corporations to mold their copyright in its favor the more people will be resistant to those changes and the more other countries will start to ignore their pleas. Sadly I don’t think anyone in the administration has the foresight to see this.
I know its sad how the US tries to impose its laws on everybody else but hey it started years ago with the war on drugs. I mean what would our forefathers think about us actively patrolling the whole dam western hemisphere from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego for drugs? Talk about playing the worlds policemen.