Canada a top violator of copyright law?

Canada a top violator of the copyright law? I did a double take when I read this. But on second thoughts, with the large ethnic population, and the stuff I see on sale in stores and flea markets - for instance from the Desi perspective - all the bollywood stuff - the latest CDs, DVDs are pirated and is available for a dollar or two - and the same goes for chinese, vietnames and others - this report becomes all the more believable - t

Canada has joined Russia and China as the biggest violators of U.S. copyright law, according to the U.S.-based International Intellectual Property Alliance.

In a report filed to U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab on Monday, the group recommended that Canada join the other two countries on the USTR's Priority Watch List.

Officials prepare to destroy pirated CDs and DVDs in Beijing. China leads a list of U.S. copyright infringers, with an estimated $2.9 billion in trade lost to piracy in 2007, according to the International Intellectual Property Alliance.
(Color China Photo/Associated Press)

Countries on this list are subject to accelerated investigations and possible trade sanctions.

The IIPA said Canada is the only country in the 30-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that has yet to modernize its copyright law or meet the minimum global standards set out in the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty signed in 1996.

"Canada has taken no meaningful steps toward modernizing its copyright law to meet the minimum global standards of the WIPO internet treaties, which it signed more than a decade ago," the report said.

"In 2007, parliamentary leadership and the government, at its highest levels, acknowledged many of these deficiencies and the government listed copyright reform among its top legislative priorities. But these encouraging statements have not yet evolved into anything more concrete."