Act now on copyright infringement ‘shakedown’ letters: Masse

The federal government shouldn’t stand idly by, awaiting the looming review of the Copyright Act, before taking action on copyright infringement notices that dupe alleged downloaders into ponying up unnecessary settlements to copyright holders, according to the NDP’s innovation critic. This month, Windsor, Ont.- area MP Brian Masse began making noise in the House of Commons about the issue of notice-and-notice shakedown letters, beginning June 7 when he tabled an order paper question and made an oral query during question period, followed this week by tabling a notice of motion on Tuesday. The proposed motion calls for the House to “recognize that the Notice and Notice regime is increasingly being used by some copyright owners for purposes beyond the original legislative intent of protecting intellectual property rights by educating Internet users on the boundaries of copyright law,” and that “some copyright owners are using the Notice and Notice regime as a revenue tool by making unsubstantiated allegations of infringement against Canadians and demanding payment under threat of legal action.” It ultimately calls for the government to “fix the Notice and Notice regime by eliminating the ability for copyright owners (or their subsidiary or agent) to use the regime to demand payment from Internet users for unproven allegations of copyright infringement.” Despite the projected November start date for the prescribed five-year parliamentary review of the Copyright Act, Masse said something can and should be done now. “For this issue, I don’t think it can wait,” he said during an interview at his office on Parliament Hill, calling it an “easy fix” to require standardized letters notifying users of alleged infringing activity that Internet service providers (ISPs) are required to pass along from copyright holders. “Here’s the crux of it: we have too many people that become victimized by an industry that’s, certainly right now, capable of intimidating people into payment,” Masse said, drawing a parallel between the infringement letters that include settlement demands and scams that bilk people out of thousands of dollars by claiming victims owe money to the Canada Revenue Agency. “So given the quickness and pace of the way things move, waiting for a review, and review of the review, can take a very long time for something that can be a shakedown of Canadians in a matter of moments.” He added: “You could talk about growing the middle class all you want, but if people are intimidated to making cheques out when they shouldn’t for two, three thousand dollars, then no personal tax cut will make up that financial loss for being intimidated into paying something that you shouldn’t have paid anyways.” Online forums frequently feature posts by anxious users, seeking advice on the appropriate course of action after receiving such letters, and are usually counselled to delete the notice without any further thought, since rightsholders don’t actually have the identity of the alleged infringer without going through the courts to make the ISP give it up. However, it may have become cheaper for rightsholders to obtain that information, following May’s successful appeal by Voltage Pictures LLC of the costs owed to Rogers Communications Inc. to disclose customer information in an infringement case. The decision by the Federal Court determined that ISPs couldn’t set a fee to identify customers, until the government sets a limit, potentially increasing the incentive of copyright holders to pursue these types of actions. This isn’t the first time the NDP has pressed the issue, as the party called for the then-Conservative government in power when the notice-and-notice regime began in 2015 to close the “loophole that allows media companies to bully Canadians with threats of hefty fines” shortly after it came into effect. “We could say ‘I told you so,’ but it won’t stop people from being preyed upon. We told them it was going to happen and we’re here now to raise this to the Liberals,” Masse said, adding that Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains and his parliamentary secretary David Lametti have been receptive. “And to the credit of the minister, he did identify telling Canadians they didn’t have to pay this . So I think he does deserve a credit for that. Now that’s got to lead to action, though,” Masse said. Standardizing the infringement notices would remove the guesswork of what is and isn’t allowed, according to Masse, and also offers “very clear control… where it can refer to specific legislation and an education component that is less abrasive to a variety of degrees of attempts to coerce people into paying.” He said while the perfect notification letter that everyone agrees upon is never going to materialize, all he knows “right now is we need to do something or we’re going to have a lot of serious and sad situations.” Masse said his current campaign didn’t necessarily stem from a particular incident or constituent complaint, but rather ongoing work “on the whole digital commerce world in terms of everything from privacy to that of the economics and consumer rights through it.” He added: “So there’s several moving parts, but in those moving parts the one constant in this is protection of privacy and rights of people in a fair, principled way.” If someone is going to be affected in a negative way by the notice-and-notice regime, it should come from “them being called to account for poor decisions if you’re buying and gathering and selling the stuff,” Masse said, not from a lack of policy. — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Act now on copyright infringement ‘shakedown’ letters: Masse

Broadcast | June 14, 2017

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Act now on copyright infringement ‘shakedown’ letters: Masse

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