As Canadian ISPs Requested, Canada Get Proposed Law To Ban Copyright Settlement Letters

from the ISPlease dept

Well, that didn't take long. We had just discussed Canadian ISPs petitioning the government to amend copyright law such that they would no longer be forced to pass along copyright settlement threat letters to their customers from copyright trolls such as Rightscorp. The opportunity for this comes as part of Canada amending its copyright law as a result of Donald Trump's NAFTA replacement, the USMCA. Well, it seems like there are those in the Canadian government who were listening, as a new bill has been introduced that will effectively outlaw such settlement letters.

The applicable language is part of the budget implementation Bill C-86 and reads as follows. A notice of claimed infringement shall not contain

(a) an offer to settle the claimed infringement;

(b) a request or demand, made in relation to the claimed infringement, for payment or for personal information;

(c) a reference, including by way of hyperlink, to such an offer, request or demand; and

(d) any other information that may be prescribed by regulation. This text will effectively ban all settlement attempts. That’s good news for members of the public who are no longer at risk. However, the Rightscorps of this world will be less pleased, as it destroys their business model in Canada.

It seems to me that this actually goes further than ISPs had requested. All those ISPs had asked was to not be party to something that looks like extortion of their own customers. This law, by my reading, goes further and forbids the common settlement letter entirely. While this all still has to be voted on and approved before it becomes law, all of the early response to this news has been positive from the Canadian public. The government going against that sentiment and siding instead with copyright trolls would be an insane move, meaning that this will likely pass into law.

And then, perhaps, we can export a like law to the States. You know, to "bring our copyright laws in line to meet our international trade obligations"?

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Filed Under: canada, copyright, copyright trolling, settlement letters, shakedowns