13 Countries On US "Priority Watch List" For Copyright Piracy

hapworth writes "The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has submitted a report on the top 40 countries guilty of piracy to The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), which is preparing for its annual 'Special 301' report. This report describes the adequacy and effectiveness of US trading partners' protection of intellectual property rights. Among the 40 countries suggested by the IIPA for the watch list, 13 were recommended for placement on the USTR's 'Priority Watch List.' These countries include Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Spain, Ukraine, and Vietnam. While previous reports have focused on physical piracy, this year's emphasizes cracking down on online piracy."

Re:speaking as a Canadian to the USTR

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Canadian, do you have any idea why Canadia ended up on the list? The rest I can understand, with the possible exception of Spain, but Canada? Really?

Canada is always included on their list of naughty countries. It's some trade association though, so take any of their claims with a mountain of salt.

As usual, Michael Geist's site is refreshingly informative.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3920/135/ "U.S. List Unfairly Tarnishes Canada's Digital Reputation" from 2009.

Re:speaking as a Canadian to the USTR

[Jeff DeMaagd]

This has been a running issue for a few years now. I think it's largely because they want to make an example of Canada to convince them to pass the Canadian version of the DMCA.

Re:speaking as a Canadian to the USTR

[Anonymous Coward]

This wikipedia page might shed some light on why Canada made priority watch list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_in_Canada

Re:speaking as a Canadian to the USTR

[hawkingradiation]

It is because we have legislation in the works (Bill C-32) that the US government, er music and film industry, thinks will help give them more money. So far, it is called the "DMCA of Canada" for good reason. i.e. restriction of breaking digital locks for any reason, and although the Conservative government says it is willing to make modifications based on the input of Canadians, basically it has ignored the input given last summer by thousands of Canadians through "Copyright Consultations" and is pushing ahead. The Liberals (not a swear word here) have proposed modifications such as an Internet levy to pay for artists, however almost none of the money that the CD-levy has actually not gone to the artists themselves. Here is the Bill [parl.gc.ca], and not is is a lot longer and complex that the original law that we have to today. Our Heritage Minister branded us as "not wanting to modernize Canadian law", because most Canadians who know about the law know that it does not need changing. In fact parts of the Canadian government seem to go lock-step with their US counterparts, with both Prentice (former Industry Minister) and Clement (current Industry Minister) being sent to the US to meet with US government officials about this law as one of the first things they have done when they took office. So to the US who is helping to introduce a law that most Canadians feel is unnecessary: "Go shove it".

Good luck with Argentina

[Isaac Remuant]

The perpetual financial crisis in this country along with the lack of moral condemnation makes it a haven of piracy. I'd say that 90 % of desktop computers have ilegal windows and those include many medium-sized companies and goverment instituitons. Those that pay liscenses basically do it in response to fines from possible inspections (or use Linux).

The 300-plus-page report provides several pages of analysis for each country. As an example, it cites Argentina as having seen 965 percent growth in Internet usage over the last 10 years, with 26 million users (64 percent of the population) now online. Of the entire digital music market in Argentina, piracy represents a staggering 99 percent, with more than 1.25 billion songs downloaded illegally every year.

There's a 4 to 1 relation between the US dollar and the Argentinian Peso and the average citizen earns much less than first world countries. The cost of life is permanently increasing.

Taringa.net -- hosted in Argentina; Alexa rank of 116; 7,155 sites linking in, with its biggest audience from Mexico.

This is the best example. It's the iconic webpage in Argentina for a lot of things and one of those things is file sharing. Everyone who needs certain software knows that the fastest way of getting access to it will probably be to search on that site. People compete for points in a very well thought social system (it includes games and more). Normal people get sucked into this "reputation" thing and become average posters.

Taringa, in essence, doesn't do anything ilegal because it only has links to hosting sites.

From the PDF

Rampant piracy in Argentina remains a very low priority for the government and
many of its enforcement authorities

In a country of political turmoil and widespread corruption online piracy is not an issue. Specially when Argentina doesn't have many affected companies or services.

Regarding the priority actions. Their goals are unrealistic. Many people are hungry and below the line of poverty. If the US wants to provide aid for the goverment, humanitarian needs are closer to what the goverment might look at.

If they think that pressuring Argentina with bonuses or threats is going to affect this particular line of goverment, they are blatantly wrong. Relations with the US over economy matters are not good after many years of struggles with the International Monetary Fund.

Tl,DR: Argentinians, used to pay overpriced goods with their low wages don't see any moral problem getting things they'd probably wouldn't be able to have if they didn't resort to piracy and, besides, everyone else does it.

Arg Gov won't budge in an election year to the likes of USA when there has been no evidence in the past years that this was beneficial (ie: IMF regulations)

forgive the typos and related grammatical horrors. It's late.

Re:speaking as a Canadian to the USTR

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's basically the situation. The most bizarre thing about Bill C-32 was the way Prentice (relevant minister at the time of the previous version) went into a press conference touting how great it would be for Canadians to be able to legally backup their DVD, CD or other media and transfer it to ipods and other devices. The new provisions in there specifically allowed this, whereas before it was always a grey zone whether it fell under fair dealing or not. When people asked him how it would be possible for people to legally exercise that new right when the proposed revisions simultaneously made it illegal to break the encryption on DVDs, he looked like a deer in the headlights. Either he had no clue that the legislation had contradictions built into it like that, or he didn't understand the question. Either way the new version isn't much better, this legislation has NOT been fully thought through, and although they've tried to blunt some of the stupidity that was in the US DMCA, it's a rather lackluster effort. And this is the third fricking time a revised copyright bill has been proposed via 3 different governments, and it's still not done right, with a decent balance! You'd think they'd get a clue after the ever-increasing amount of critical feedback they've been getting. The simplest solution to the problems of the anti-circumvention portions would be to say: if what you're doing isn't otherwise illegal under copyright law (e.g., what you're doing falls under fair dealing), then the anti-circumvention portions of the law don't apply. People have suggested that over and over again. It's obvious that they simply don't want to roll back some of the more egregious problems, probably because companies don't want any loopholes that might be exploited.

"So to the US who is helping to introduce a law that most Canadians feel is unnecessary: "Go shove it"."

That's not very Canadian.

"Please shove it" would be a more appropriate response.

Re:speaking as a Canadian to the USTR

[hjf]

It's not about that, and here goes my usual rant again:

Companies DON'T GIVE A FUCK about countries like mine. We don't have itunes, netflix, lala, pandora, hulu, xbox live, nothing. We also don't have game stores (microsoft doesn't import the xbox 360 or games, so even if you have one, you can't buy games simply because there are no places to buy them). Blockbuster closed too.

Sony does import the PS3 (at USD 800) and games (2-3x the US price).

So in one hand we have a middle class, with money, willing to buy things. In the other hand we have 60-something investors which think we still live in trees and there is no market for their products, and decide just not to sell them, or a very small "luxury" market, like the PS3.

If companies one day decided to start selling their stuff, for a reasonable price, I know people will buy them. How do I know this? Because I have a comic book shop. My customers are mostly teenagers who want the latest Naruto episode, and can get it from free from the internet just hours after it's been released in Japan. We have a local Naruto edition (in paper I mean) and guess what? It sells out.

My dad's friend works at a BMW dealership. They sold all BMWs last year. There is even a waiting list!

I live in a city of 400,000 and I know there are at least 10 dvd rental stores, and even 1 bluray-only rental store. So much for poor people living in trees.

You know what the problem with piracy really is? People selling pirated movies in the street. That's the real problem, but movie studios can't do anything about them, because our government won't. And, you see, people selling pirated movies in the street or not, there are dvd rental stores doing just fine.

Re:Australia?

[TapeCutter]

Drugs are covered by patents and at the end of the day were excluded from the FTA precisely because any Aussie government that dismantled the PBS to please the US would be out on it's ear come election time. To the non-Aussies who don't know what the PBS is; it's a government scheme that ensures nobody pays more than (IIRC) $1200 a year for prescription medicine, it's been in effect since the 1950's and promotes the use of generics over brand name drugs.

Re:speaking as a Canadian to the USTR

[aqui]

If it hasn't already been mentioned an interesting source of discussion on the Canadian Copyright can be found on Michael Geist's blog:

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/ [michaelgeist.ca]

He's a copyright legal expert and professor that has been vocal (he also writes a column for the Toronto Star) about copyright and striking a balance between users and content producers.

I go to his site from time to time to get a laugh about how the record companies etc... are trying to misinform Canadians...