"Are Canadians About to Be Prosecuted for File Sharing? As of late, a company named Canipre has been drumming up a lot of shadily defined fear mongering against""one million Canadians"" who they insist are illegally downloading copyrighted material. If you have never heard of Canipre, they're a new company that's looking for record label and film studio clients they can work with to suck the cash out of Canadian citizens. Canipre has teamed up with two god-awful movie studios to begin their noble journey. The first is Voltage Pictures, who has released a ton of movies that are barely bargain bin worthy, plus a film you may know called The Hurt Locker. Canipre's other companion in this shakedown mission is NGN Productions, who has released such gems as Paparazzi Princess: The Paris Hilton Story, a made-for-TV program, and Recoil, an action movie with Stone Cold Steve Austin. Not only is it bullshit that Stone Cold Steve Austin has been dragged into this mess, the tactics behind Canipre's lawsuits seem to be bullshit as well. On Canipre's website, they proudly advertise to potential clients that ""when asked, 95%"" of accused file-sharers ""stop"" downloading entirely. Evidently, they like to brag about their bullying tactics. Their front page also has a randomly generating slogan that spouts out wisdom like, ""it's an arms race, and your bottom line is the target,"" ""your audience isn't rational,"" and ""if they keep thinking it's free, when do you go out of business?"" A screenshot from Canipre's friendly website.As for Canada's copyright laws, a close reading of the penalties detailed in our new amendment to the copyright act, C-11, leads to some uncertainties. For example, if you are found guilty of ""circumventing"" a ""technological protection measure"" you can be fined up to $25,000 or sentenced to a maximum of sixth months in jail. Would that include breaking the iTunes DRM off an album that someone purchased, then sending that newly ""unprotected"" digital copy to a friend? Continue"
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