Canada….Now It’s Your Turn!!

Canada against Film Piracy

Despite the fact that the country has always been criticized for its failure to come up with better anti-piracy legislation, Canada is currently ready to take on film pirates. The plan is the following.
The Canadians who enjoy downloading pirated films now may think twice before continuing to do so. Recently, a software company has been appointed to gather data on citizens who are accused of downloading illegal material. The company, which represents both the film and music industries, says that forcing Internet service providers through court order to reveal private details of their subscribers is just the first step.

For instance, a lawsuit against fifty IP addresses has already been filed, and this is just the beginning. The company in question is ready to launch another lawsuit, now against thousands of people suspected of copyright violation.

The alarming fact is that the software company managed to collect information on 1,000,000 people in 5 months, all suspected in movie piracy. Backed up by court orders, the company warns that the unauthorized downloads must stop or they will have to pay damages of up to $5,000 and face criminal charges for copyright violation.

The lawsuit in question was filed on behalf of a Burnaby film production company, which has already managed to obtain subpoenas, forcing a few ISPs to disclose the private details of their subscribers. They claim that Canada remains a very important country in terms of P2P file-sharing and unauthorized downloading of copyrighted content.

However, ISPs still have to decide whether they are planning to cooperate or not. According to the former Canada Research chair in IP law at the University of B.C., the local movie industry is currently considering the idea of adopting American “six-strikes” system. Their goal is to try and make a dent in the online downloading activity, following the example of US approach which was to try to target individual downloaders and set them as a precedent of what can happen if the unauthorized downloading activity is discovered. They point out that it is not a question of trying to get fines in place, but rather an issue of creating an idea of deterrence in the mind of people, so they are not going to limit this to the teens downloading popular tracks.