Entertainment Industry: Blame Canada!

from the blacklist-'em dept

Wed, Feb 14th 2007 11:10am — Mike Masnick

The US government (at the urging of the entertainment industry) has made a big deal of calling out certain countries, such as China and Russia, as being "intellectual property villains" and threatened those countries with sanctions or trouble with the WTO if they didn't crack down. Apparently, the entertainment industry has a new target. It's asking the Bush administration to blacklist Canada as well (via Rob Hyndman). Canada? It's not exactly the first place you think of for unauthorized content or counterfeit goods. It seems this is really just another part of the entertainment industry's totally pointless obsession with passing slightly stricter laws on camcorders in movie theaters -- an issue that's barely a problem for the industry given that most counterfeit movies are copies of the actual movie, rather than camcorded versions. Other than that, the big complaint seems to be that mod chips aren't illegal. Of course, some might point out that there are perfectly good reasons why mod chips should be legal. If you've bought your own piece of hardware, why shouldn't you be allowed to modify it?

There are also a few concerns from the entertainment industry because Canada has resisted some of the more draconian parts of US copyright law -- and apparently, that's just awful, as the lawyer complaining about this notes that Canada hasn't even drafted new copyright legislation. Perhaps that's because they realize there's no problem. But, you won't find that point anywhere in the Globe and Mail article. The reporter takes the entertainment industry's view as if it were fact. Meanwhile, Michael Geist points out that the claims that Canada somehow isn't living up to some international standard with its copyright laws simply isn't true. He lists out a bunch of other countries that the entertainment industry is whining about as well. It's beginning to look like it's really the US that's not living up to the world standard -- by being way to cozy with the entertainment industry and its desire to protect an obsolete business model.

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25 Comments

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Jerome, 14 Feb 2007 @ 11:40am

Bah... the US wants to protect all the music and movies they forcefeed canadians
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USA sucks, 14 Feb 2007 @ 11:40am

This country is going to shit...
fuck em. (I mean the US)
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dorpus, 14 Feb 2007 @ 11:44am

Sons of Cain
Instead, Canadians produce their terrible Canadian movies which are low-budget clones of US movies. But as long as the movies are made in garbage languages like French, nobody complains.
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Chronno S. trigger, 14 Feb 2007 @ 11:44am

Idiots
When you think everyone is wrong except you, maybe you should look harder at yourself.

Isn't that also one of the definitions for insanity, thinking everyone except you is wrong?
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Shohat, 14 Feb 2007 @ 12:08pm

You are silly
Just FYI - The major Labels are NOT American companies . It's just easier to influence US politicians and people , and easier to influence other countries via pressure by the US . So MPAA and RIAA are just US-based organizations that are used by major labels , which are not American at all .

SONY-BMG is Japan/German corporation , Universal (if I am not mistaken the largest one) is just a part of Vivendi , which is a French corporation, and so on .

Just because Americans and their politicians look slightly dumber and exploitable (at least in the last 7 years), it's been easy to pressure everyone using US as the base of operations . US isn't really the home of "evil" , it's just easier to lobby into doing the right things for these companies.
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Steve, 14 Feb 2007 @ 12:46pm

Geuss I better start making pirated copies of everything i can get my hands on in existence just in case.

I never pirated anything before, but since the copyright companies constantly bring the idea to my attention........
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drakdrum, 14 Feb 2007 @ 12:48pm

Sons of Cain
I sure hope the comments by dorpus were intended as sarcasm. The facts are that a lot of so called American movies are made in Canada, with a lot of Canadian actors, directed by Canadians, filmed and edited by Canadians - NOT Hollywood. And many many are quite decent, then there is the television industry - the percent of weekly series done in Canada would surprise most people.

Oh and btw, I am not a Canadian.
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Jon, 14 Feb 2007 @ 12:50pm

Evil Is as Evil Does
Evil is too harsh a word, but saying that the "US isn't really the home of evil" is kind of wrong. No matter the "home country" of the major record labels, it's the US government which would throw its weight around by imposing sanctions and such. You don't see Japan or Germany threatening sanctions against camcorder countries, do you?
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dorpus, 14 Feb 2007 @ 1:05pm

Re: Sons of Cain
Yeah, a lot of Americans, especially in the Midwest, can tell when the actors speak funny Canadian-American accents, and the cities look strange. The knuckleheads in Hollywood don't, though.
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Alucardbsm, 14 Feb 2007 @ 1:08pm

Re: Sons of Cain
Don't worry about Dorpus. I try to ignore his comments as much as possible.
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Andrew, 14 Feb 2007 @ 1:14pm

Re: You are silly
You're right about the RIAA (are they under the IFPI?), however all of the studios represented by the MPAA were founded and are headquartered in the US - except for Sony Pictures which has headquarters in California (est. 1989 after buying out Columbia) and Japan (est. 1984).
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Shohat, 14 Feb 2007 @ 1:16pm

Re: Evil Is as Evil Does
Erm , I'm not from the US . And Japan and Germany don't do it because of completely different set of priorities of the politicians in power .
In those countries politicians would probably ask themelves "So how would that help the people that voted for me ?" . In the US it's more of "What do I get out of it ?" thing I guess.
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Sarcastic Consumer, 14 Feb 2007 @ 3:49pm

Re: Evil I as Evil Does
hmm... this sounds like we have a true democratic capitalistic system in the US while in Japan and Germany it might just be a democratic system... It would be nice if we can still have a soul after the nice stuff that they come up with. Oh... copy right.... oh yeah, who cares, just keep copying them...
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dorpus, 14 Feb 2007 @ 4:37pm

Re: Sons of Cain
I'm not smart enough to be sarcastic.
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|333173|3|_||3, 14 Feb 2007 @ 5:44pm

Re: Re: Sons of Cain
I would set up a filter so that wehnever the name field is set to dorpus, it is displayed as Mindless fuckwit or some other similar phrase
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Mindless Fuckwit, 14 Feb 2007 @ 8:42pm

Re: Re: Re: Sons of Cain
Like that'll ever happen... Oh snap..
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M. E, 15 Feb 2007 @ 2:19am

Divide and Conquer
It's a divide and conquer strategy. Today they blame Canada for ripping 50% of Cinema releases (even though the MPAA own numbers show its a complete lie). They get the law changed in Canada, then onto the next country, make ridiculous false allegations there and get the law changed there. An attempt to divide countries and pick them off one by one.
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ScytheNoire, 15 Feb 2007 @ 2:20am

As a Canadian...
I will be emailing my MP (member of parlament, like an american senator) and discussing this topic. I would be ashamed to be Canadian if we passed laws like America, where even if you own the product, it's illegal to do anything with it that is covered under fair-use laws, and every one is a criminal until proven guilty (in other words, no one is innocent).
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Enrico Suarve, 15 Feb 2007 @ 2:56am

Blacklist us all
Go on - you know you want to

do it, do it now ;0)

I don't think this is a Canadian/French/German/Russian/Chinese/... thing at all. I am not aware of *any* other country which has as many bizarre copyright laws as the US

If you're going to do it, do it right - blacklist everyone who doesn't fit your ideals

Then come back in a few years time when you've put all your toys back in the pram

MPAA, RIAA go to your rooms now! I mean it!
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billy, 15 Feb 2007 @ 6:48am

sad to be American
I wish our government wasn't such a bunch of sell outs to corporations. The US could be tons better if lobbyists were outlawed completely. I was very happy to see the whole Abramoff (however the hell his name is spelt) thing blown wide open. Now, if we can just convict every single other representative and senator who is also obviously a sell out. Out legislative branch used to represent the people .. once upon a time .. maybe.
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Jack Sparrow, 15 Feb 2007 @ 8:58am

Hi Mates!!!
Hi mates!

It's alllllllll abooooout mooooney!! Justtttt moooonnneyyyy!!

Lets think with the brains, not the ass.

The world have many more important, urgent, things on pay attention. Poverty, clear water, stop-wars, global warming, food for bilions, AIDs...

C'mon, what a big waste of time and money for the people of USA, canada, China, elsewhere to create laws to one branch of companies. Companies that is going on fast against the mainstream, against the history.

Weakup ! Heeellloooo we are in 2007.

And stop to say buulshit about the Canadians. We all knnows about Canadians are serious and correct people, as the majority of Americans, French, Italian....

Begin to look and act to the righ way.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Feb 2007 @ 11:20am

Re: Divide and Conquer
Agreed - I've heard it called "island hopping" - the same thing the US forces did to conquer Japan in the Pacific during WW II.
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Darius, 15 Feb 2007 @ 7:00pm

Speculation
Jack Sparrow is right, all these labels are after is money. same with most other eletronic products. The intended user is the one who buys it. Basically meaning one copy per person, family, friend or not. The strict laws and high prices make people seek an "alternative" method to view products.
If isn't money, its power. They want the ablity to exert their influence on anybody anytime they want so they can have more money then they need.
It seems that companies who say that they are losing millions of dollars to piracy refer too possilbe profit. using the phrase 'losing money' to mean 'we're not making as much money as we could be'. Same with the oil companies, Exxon who reported the highest earnings of any american company; if they are losing money whats that mean for the rest of us?
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Canandian, 24 Feb 2007 @ 1:50pm

Pffftt!!!
Stop blaming Canada for you stupid problems.
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DKay, 13 Mar 2007 @ 1:17pm

Re: Sons of Cain
I love how the USA slames Canadian Movies when most of their movies are made by Canadian Directors & Actors. Their biggest hits are because of a Canadian. The shoot movies using Canadian Sceens. Plus every time a big hit comes out, it seems the states always have to make a replica based around the smae hit movie in which it goes straight to video.
Canadians have more of an amagination and creative style then the states as all the states think about is war with everyone outside it's contry. That reminds me...how come the US always wins the war in movies such as alien movies, ghost movie, disaster, monsters, Godzilla! Come on! Give others credit out side your bubble. You people are definatly not perfect.
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