Canada is So Evil
The Globe and Mail has an amazingly one-sided article on the front page today, suggesting that Canada is somewhere in the realm of “criminally negligent” in it’s copyright laws.
A powerful coalition of U.S. software, movie and music producers is urging the Bush administration to put Canada on an infamous blacklist of intellectual property villains, alongside China, Russia and Belize.
The article pays lip-service to unbiased-reporting by making sure each complaint is attributed to the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) rather than the paper, but with no sign of an opposing viewpoint to be seen – or even any context in which to understand the complaints – the piece seems better suited for the editorial section.
The Globe states that “unlike in the United States and most other developed countries, videotaping movies in theatres is not illegal in Canada,” which is only half true. While there is no specific law that prohibits videotaping in theatres, doing so would break existing, broader, copyright laws and be subject to fines of up to one million dollars and five years in jail. That hardly makes Canada the safe haven for video pirates the IIPA would have you believe it is.
The same paragraph continues with another statement that may be technically true but completely lacks qualification:
“Likewise, there is no law in Canada that specifically bans mod chips and other piracy tools, as there is in the United States.”
Again, this is true: Canada does not have a DMCA-equivalent prohibition on “circumvention technologies”. However, the article implies this is necessarily a bad thing while completely ignoring the controversy that still surrounds the DMCA in the U.S. nine years on, the abuses that it’s encouraged, and the unfortunate effects it’s had on fields like security research. It is entirely misleading to suggest that DMCA-like anti-circumvention laws are universally accepted as “Good Things.”
As usual, Michael Geist does an excellent job of single-handedly covering the other side of the story. There’s a lot going on with regard to copyright and IP law in Canada these days, and it doesn’t do the discussion any good when American lobby groups are able to have their statements presented – on the front page, no less – as unchallenged gospel.
I don’t know…I read that article this morning before you posted this and I didn’t interpret as an editorial, but rather reporting that the Bush administration were idiots for suggesting that Canada go on the list.
I think if you’re the type of person that’s sort of “up” on this sort of thing, yeah, you’re going to sort of say “Oh, those wacky guys at the IIPA are at it again!” The problem is that if you’re *not* paying attention, it can be pretty easy to see the article as reporting the accusations the organization makes as fact.
The second paragraph is sort of representative of much of the article:
Well, that’s clearly a bad thing, and if you’re reading the article with anything less than a critical point of view, it would be easy to skim over the part that says
Beyond that, as I mentioned in the post, while reporting things that are technically true – like the bit about no anti-circumvention legislation – the Globe fails to provide any context that would allow a less-informed person to make any sort of informed judgment. Based on the content of the article alone, I wouldn’t blame someone for believing that the need for DMCA-like legislation in Canada is obvious and uncontroversial.
I didn’t intend to imply that I believe the Globe itself was pushing a political agenda with my “editorial” remark. It just seems like pretty poor reporting and a disservice to readers when the IIPA’s accusations are allowed on the front page with absolutely no attempt to present the other side of the story.