Bloody Canadians. If they're not clubbing seals to death they're nicking your tour bus. And if they're not nicking your tour bus they're blatantly stealing your intellectual property. Bastards. Only joking. Some of my best friends are Canadians. Well, I knew one once.
Anyway, the US has added Canada to a list of countries which persistently fail to protect intellectual property rights, which puts them in the same league as Algeria, China, Russia, Pakistan and Indonesia. While there has been much criticism in the past from the US and elsewhere regarding Canada's copyright laws, and their failure to take on physical bootleggers as well as the ever growing population of online pirates, it is the first time the Americans have put their Northern neighbours on their "priority watch list" of IP abusers. The move is probably an attempt to move copyright reform up the agenda of the current Canadian government who have vowed to act in the issue but have so far done little more than that.
The report from the US Trade Representative that revealed Canada had been added to the watch list noted: "We urge Canada to enact legislation in the near term to strengthen its copyright laws and implement relevant World Intellectual Property Organisation treaties . The United States also continues to urge Canada to improve its IP enforcement system to enable authorities to take effective action against the trade in counterfeit and pirated products within Canada, as well as curb the volume of infringing products transshipped and transiting through Canada".
While some Canadians might be quietly smiling that their outdated copyright laws are pissing off the Americans, the boss of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, Graham Henderson, said the his country's inclusion on the watch list was "unfortunate and embarrassing".
Needless to say, he wants his country's politicians to get on top of copyright issues. He told reporters yesterday: "Unfortunately, it's too late to avoid this rebuke after years of ignoring our closest trading partners' pleas to rein in the rampant theft of intellectual property. But it's not too late to take the measures needed for our country to be removed from this list of the world's most notorious pirate nations. We can quickly restore Canada's good name by strengthening our laws and enforcement against physical counterfeiting and digital piracy. This includes the long-overdue fulfillment of our commitment under the 1996 WIPO Treaties to reform our copyright laws".
There have been various attempts to reform the Canadian copyright system, especially since judges there said current laws were insufficient to enable them to actually rule that file-sharing of unlicenced content was, in itself, illegal. However, past attempts at reform have been fought off by those who oppose tighter copyright controls, or just run out of steam as other issues dominated the political agenda.