Friday, June 13, 2008

New Canadian law passed for illegal downloading of copyright material

Chances are that anybody working in the creative field will be happy with the news that Canada has passed a law to deal with downloading copyright material, the problem is how do the police and the legal field enforce said law?

"New legislation against downloading copyrighted material comes with one big problem. Nobody knows how fines could be doled out because nobody knows how violators could be caught, York Regional Police said yesterday. The current copyright law carries a maximum fine of $20,000 but has been geared towards nabbing commercial distributors and high-volume bootleggers."
http://money.canoe.ca/News/Economy/2008/06/13/5867376-sun.html

"The federal government has introduced a controversial bill it says balances the rights of copyright holders and consumers — but it opens millions of Canadians to huge lawsuits, prompting critics to warn it will create a "police state."

"We are confident we have developed the proper framework at this point in time," Minister of Industry Jim Prentice told a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday. "This bill reflects a win-win approach."
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/06/12/tech-copyright.html

At present anyone caught disobeying the copyright law, which is focused on dealing with commercial distributors and bootleggers, can be fined $20,000. The new legislation will focus on
deterring individual downloaders and purchasers of scammed content.

When it's all said and done, however, the main question or issue is: how do you catch individual downloaders?

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