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 “Canadian copyright law is actually much stronger than U.S. copyright law in many ways, some of which are worth quite a lot of money to the USA”, says Canadian copyright expert Howard Knopf.

“It is worth noting as well that, for most of the last century, most copyright royalties in Canada have been flowing to American corporate interests”, he says, going on:

“While stronger copyright laws may not always make for better public policy, they often result in significant royalty outflows to U.S. and other foreign interests.”

Earlier in his post, “The deadline for submissions on the U.S. “301? process has been extended until 5:00 PM on Thursday, February 18, 2010 due the Washington weather”, he points out, continuing >>>

…  this is an important opportunity to make views known, since the usual suspects in the U.S. copyright based industries will be working through the usual Washington lawyer/lobbyists that have much influence in the USTR to draft a report that could once again falsely condemn Canada as a rogue nation and a piracy haven, when the truth of the matter is that:

• Canada already has much stronger copyright laws in many ways than the USA;

• These stronger laws result in significant dollar outflows that greatly favour U.S. interests with little or insufficient benefit for Canadians;

• There is no verified and reliable evidence of piracy or counterfeiting problems in Canada that are any worse than in other comparable countries. In fact, the largest and most accessible market in North American for pirated and counterfeit consumer products remains the streets of mid-town and lower Manhattan;

• The alleged deficiencies in Canada’s laws regarding file sharing have not been proven in any Canadian court and the music and film industries have taken no serious initiative to do so, despite having been given a green light to proceed by the Federal Court of Appeal in 2005. Instead, they lobby for US DMCA+ type laws. Indeed, much of the alleged copyright problem that the music industry complains about in Canada is a direct result of its own successful wish for a rich private copying levy, the result of which has included the effective legalization of music downloading in this country, according to comments by both the Copyright Board and the Federal Court. The music industry has proven only that it ought to be careful what it wishes for, not that there is any need to change Canadian law; and,

• The entertainment industry in Canada is doing quite well, even as things stand. As Michael Geist recently reported, “Nielsen Soundscan has just released the Canadian music sales figures for 2009. Notwithstanding the regular claims that the Canadian digital music market cannot develop without copyright reform, the Canadian market grew faster than the U.S. market for the fourth consecutive year.”

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