Policy

Piracy is estimated to cost the U.S. and Canadian entertainment software industries more than $3.5 billion annually. This figure only includes hard goods and does not include losses from Internet piracy. Piracy levels in Canada are abnormally high and have significant negative impacts on the Canadian video game industry. Piracy siphons the revenue necessary to recover the enormous investments associated with video game production. This can often have a disproportionate impact on smaller, independent studios whose success often hinges on the release of a single game it has spent years developing. If the company is unable to generate significant revenue from the royalties of game sales, it may not be capable of weathering such a staggering financial loss. The impact of piracy, then, can be ruinous.

Some additional facts on piracy in Canada:

• Industry investigations have identified an alarming 20% to 30% of retail specialty stores visited in Toronto and Vancouver as selling pirate products.
• In Canada, approximately 34% of gamers have acquired pirated games. This is especially notable when considering only 17% of gamers in the US have acquired pirated games.
• On average, 22% of pirates’ video game collections are pirated games.
• In Canada, approximately 22% of gamers have modified their consoles or handhelds to play pirated games.

We believe Canada requires stronger measures to combat piracy, such as:

• Enacting prohibitions specifically addressed to the act of circumvention and to trafficking in circumvention devices;
• Strengthening remedies for retail piracy, and increasing damages and penalties under the Copyright Act;
• Implementing deterrent criminal and civil remedies against those engaged in the provision of services and tools that circumvent TPMs;
• Providing to law enforcement the resources and training required to effectively combat piracy;
• Providing incentives for ISPs to co-operate with rights holders when informed of an infringing activity occurring on their networks;
• Adopting measures to facilitate the rights holder’s action against online piracy;
• Adopting measures that would provide more effective enforcement against P2P services and other sites that facilitate unauthorized downloading