The IIPA Copyright Demands For Canada and Spain 113
Dangerous_Minds writes "The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) is demanding a number of countries be placed back on the special 301 piracy watchlist. One country being recommended for inclusion is Canada (PDF). Apparently, even though Canada passed copyright reform laws, any compromise to protect consumers is reason for inclusion. Michael Geist offers some analysis on this move. Meanwhile, the IIPA is also recommending that Spain be included in the watchlist. In a separate filing, the IIPA makes a host of reasons why Spain should also be included. One of the main reasons seems to be that even though Spain passed the Sinde Law in spite of protests, the courts aren't simply rubberstamping any takedown requests and that cases that were dismissed due to lack of evidence is cause for concern. Freezenet offers some in-depth analysis on this development while noting towards the end that the Special 301 report suffers from credibility problems."
Re:IIPA's newspeak (Score:4, Informative)
So, judging from this, for IIPA, "illegal file sharing" does not actually mean "things that are outlawed and prosecuted in respective countries", it simply means "things we don't want other people to do".
Well at least in the US you have civil and criminal copyright infringement, so it can be infringing without being criminal. As I understood it in Spain downloading is considered an act of private copying which is legal, but it sounds like unauthorized uploading still is illegal, just not criminally prosecuted unless it's for commercial profit. I'm sure they would have formulated it differently if all non-commercial file sharing was fully legal, you could set up huge, legal, non-profit seeds in Spain.
Re:IIPA (Score:4, Informative)
"If Spain decides that pirating is OK, i guess that Americans can restrict/boycott Spanish IP commercialization."
Problem being that Spain never decided that pirating is OK. Heck, Spain even sent war ships to Somalian waters to fight piracy.
And no, Spain is not in favor of IP violations either, but that doesn't mean it has to be Disney's shill which is what this IIPA 301 list is all about.