Canada Is A Hotbed For Online Piracy, Rightsholders Claim

Who knew Canada was a hotbed for piracy? I find it kind of funny that the International Intellectual Property Alliance, in its press release compaing about piracy, provided a list of the most popular torrent sites with "attractive, user-friendly interface." Whoops.

The MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment industry groups are unhappy with how the Canadian Government is approaching the problem of online piracy. The country remains very appealing to pirate sites, they claim, while ISPs often fail to warn infringing subscribers effectively.

YYYYYYYaaaaarrrrrr!

Guess those "unhappy groups" are applying pressure for the government to cave in to their demands, again. Yes again... they pressured years back and the government caved and instituted that special tax/levy on Blank media...

As for ISPs, wiell Canada only has a very small group of major ISPs forming an oligopoly, so all they really need to buy those companies off first.

Yet just the other day there was an article about paypal trying to put a stop to people who went out of their way to be able to throw money at netflix, because content owners didn't want Canadians paying to consume content without having their explicit permission

Steve said:

I find it kind of funny that the International Intellectual Property Alliance, in its press release compaing about piracy, provided a list of the most popular torrent sites with "attractive, user-friendly interface." Whoops.

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"attractive, user-friendly interface" No wonder they want to shut them down.

Maybe the media industry should start taking notes on how to please the consumer....

Having to subscribe to multiple sites (more $), restricted content, content only available for a limited time, having to wait 60 days (or more) after a DVD is released before it's available on streaming or for rent, unreliable connections during peak times .....

vs.

Easy download, portable format you can play on various devices, usually available a week or two before it's released on DVD, Once downloaded can be watched multiple times without using more bandwidth or even an internet connection.

And they wonder why people pirate?

RIAA pissed? Probably means Canada's doing relatively well on the balanced laws front.

Wouldnt need to pirate if the content was readily available.

Ahh the morons open their mouth again. Do they even eat their own dog food?

Meh. Maybe if Canada had hulu, amazon prime, an equivalent netflix catalog, etc the piracy wouldn't be so bad.

So some people VPN to use otherwise legal services, some people torrent, etc. Some people would pirate even if they could legally acquire the content at a reasonable price.

I work for an ISP that forwards thousands of copyright infringement notices each month.

On a somewhat related note: My PVR recently started blocking me from recording some shows if you can believe that. I pay for TV and a PVR and they are blocking me from recording some of the new commercial infested and ad-overlayed shows? I bet that'll help the piracy rates....

andrewaggb said:

Meh. Maybe if Canada had hulu, amazon prime, an equivalent netflix catalog, etc the piracy wouldn't be so bad.

So some people VPN to use otherwise legal services, some people torrent, etc. Some people would pirate even if they could legally acquire the content at a reasonable price.

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You can count me in that group (VPN).

In fact, I'm so sick and tired of getting ripped off in Canada that I go to extreme lengths to get around the geoblocking put in place because of their bullshit content agreements.

Pay Rogers a ridiculous amount for NHL Gamecenter Live? Screw them, VPN to another country and get it for a fraction of the price.

Pay extra to Shomi (Rogers / Shaw) or CraveTV (Bell / Telus)? Screw them, US Netflix has all of that stuff.

Then there is HBO, who WILL not offer HBO Now in Canada because of the exclusivity deal in place with Bell in Canada. Double screw them! I've got my ways of viewing HBO, and it's not even illegal.

Thing is, the above mentioned are what the "property holders" also are also now trying to classify as piracy, which it is not.

Funny Unotelly in Canada can no longer process payment for their services by Paypal for that very same reason.

That's ok, we Canadians are unhappy with the dangerously unethical intellectual property system in the USA where companies don't even need to prove losses to sue people. I don't pirate anything, but I still don't agree with the illegal, predatory, tactics used by the MPAA, RIAA, which I should mention also don't have any jurisdiction in Canada so they can go to hell.

So they may be unhappy that Canada has stronger consumer protection laws, but what they should be telling you is that you need to lobby your government to improve your laws, not vice versa.

I could have sworn they charge us (Canada) a piracy tax on writeable media. IMO if they charge you for it .... well doesn't that make it legitimate?

Stupid in today's digital age that there are all kinds of movies that I will PAY to rent, yet I can't because they're not on Amazon, Netflix, Comcast, Vudu, etc. Example: Only way to get John Wick right now is to be an HBO/Go subscriber.

Access problem.

Until the content creators understand that (oh wait, video game publishers seem to get it, and so do some music groups) this will continue to happen.

The government is not your private police force. It does not exist to prop up a failure to adapt--if it were up to the Darwinian hand of capitalism all these suits would be at the unemployment center.

nutzo said:

Having to subscribe to multiple sites (more $), restricted content, content only available for a limited time, having to wait 60 days (or more) after a DVD is released before it's available on streaming or for rent, unreliable connections during peak times .....

vs.

Easy download, portable format you can play on various devices, usually available a week or two before it's released on DVD, Once downloaded can be watched multiple times without using more bandwidth or even an internet connection.

And they wonder why people pirate?

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It's available, but not at a great price. It's available, but not reliably. It's available, but very limited.

Too many restrictions. They are allowing you access to it, but at their rules and their prices. The more restrictive it gets, the more incentive there is to pirate the material. And instead of making things easier to consume, they make it more difficult. The easy way is to pirate. Make consuming the media easier (Netflix, Hulu are great ways - stop trying to limit them!) and people will gladly pay for it. Make it harder - people will pirate. Even if it's available elsewhere. They don't want to jump through hoops, hope for a good quality stream, pay a lot, have multiple services for each show, etc...

what, US copyright laws don't apply in Canada and citizens can't be sued because of it?

*shocked*

At most is you will be sent an email telling you that downloaded something from a US copy right which means you need to remember to turn on your VPN.

Sikkyu said:

what, US copyright laws don't apply in Canada and citizens can't be sued because of it?

*shocked*

At most is you will be sent an email telling you that downloaded something from a US copy right which means you need to remember to turn on your VPN.

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Give a couple years. If we ratify the TPP that all goes out the window.

If Canada is a hotbed for torrent sites and people developing torrent streaming tech... the media guys did it to themselves.

Even my mother figured out how to setup a VPN so she could watch what she paid for. They have been trying to make extra cash off our our market for 30+ years. They have always seen Canada as a place where they can charge more and pretty much double sell everything to Canadians. Even before internet streams and downloads, we all had cable packages where the US channels would get blacked out or have the Canadian content providing channel pasted over during programs the rights holder was double selling. One example years back the first 2 seasons of the Conan Obrian show (I know I know) wasn't on Canadian television at all even though we all had access to NBC... they have played dirty games back and forth with rights to specific shows for years.

So yes pretty much every Canadian has found a way around the sillyness... in the early 90s it was pirating American Sat TV... now its Using VPNS and Torrents to access content we either can't get at all, or have to pay 40% more for to access from some Canadian single source.

When 60 year old women take the time to understand and setup VPNs... I think its obvious they have lost the sympathy of their market. Up there's I'll pirate there stuff for as long as I like... and the extra taxes I have had to pay for every bit of storage media I have ever purchased gives me the right. (yes they hate Canadian law... when it doesn't suit them)