IIPA demands changes under Canadian Copyright law

After a huge tussle over reforms under the Canadian copyright law, in June 2012, the debate came to an end when the Bill C-11 received royal assent. But, in a strange scene that appeared, despite the bill, being labelled as a “vital building block,” the copyright lobby that pressured the government to impose restrictive rules on digital locks and tougher penalties for copyright infringement, is already demanding further reforms that include rolling back many key aspects of the original bill.

This time, the manner of securing reforms is quite different from that of the last round of copyright reform, wherein national consultations and open committee hearings were adopted by the lobby groups. But this time, they are hoping to use secretive trade negotiations to forge legislative change. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), an umbrella organization that represents movie, music, and software associations, will urge the U.S. government to put some pressure on Canada to enact further reforms as part of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade negotiations.

Recently, the IIPA submitted its position on Canada’s entry to the TPP as part of a U.S. regulatory process. It takes the concern of the role of Internet providers in enforcing Canadian copyright law. The Canada follows the “notice-and-notice” approach, which requires providers to forward thousands of infringement allegation notices to their subscribers. It strikes a balance between effective enforcement and free speech, while preserving users’ privacy. This approach has attracted a global attention, with the countries like Chile adopting it under its domestic law. Despite this, the approach has been criticized by the IIPA, thereby calling for dramatic reforms. It argues that Canadian law “fails to provide meaningful incentives for network service providers to co-operate with copyright owners to deal with copyright infringements that take place in the digital network environment.” 

The copyright lobby demands Canada to implement measures that would require Internet providers “to take action to prevent recidivists from repeatedly using their services to commit copyright infringement.” In other words: a termination system that would cut off Internet access for subscribers accused of infringement.

Further, the IIPA also wants Canada to revert the statutory damages changes from Bill C-11, through which, it created a liability cap of $5,000 for non-commercial infringement. It claims that the non-commercial cap renders statutory damages “ineffective in achieving its goals of full compensation and deterrence in the online environment.”