The Author:
James Gannon is a lawyer at the firm McCarthy Tétrault. The views expressed here are his own.
CCER circumvents democracy (among other things)
Posted by on April 20, 2010
This can’t be a good time to be a member of the Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights (“CCER”) - a group of manufacturers of “modchips” or devices designed to circumvent embedded copy-protection technologies in things like video game consoles and smartphones.
Less than a month ago, the RCMP arrested a modchip manufacturer in Quebec and took the opportunity to issue a press release, reminding Canadians that modifying a console for commercial gain is punishable under the Criminal Code by imprisonment for up to ten years. Just a few days earlier, Professor Michael Geist had testified before the Heritage Committee in the House of Commons, stating that WIPO ratification should be a top priority for copyright reform.
With the general message being that Canada is finally getting serious about TPM circumvention, CCER and their members must realize that their days are numbered – as they should be. Video games and mobile app development are quickly becoming the rising stars of the Canadian IT industry, and here is a chance for the Government to really support a thriving industry that could mean thousands of great jobs for Canadians.
I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures for CCER.
Yesterday, Toronto lawyer Richard Owens took a closer look at the over 8000 submissions that were made during last summer’s online copyright consultation. He found that a shocking 70% of all the submissions originate from a form letter created by the members of CCER themselves. Not only this, but they proceeded to encourage readers of international websites such as Torrentfreak, known to be popular with the online piracy crowd, to submit their form letter:
To ensure a high volume of Submissions, the CCER arranged for online forums of“modders” and BitTorrent (peer-to-peer file sharing communications protocol)information sites to encourage their readers to submit the form letter. The majority of the readership of these forums is, of course, non-Canadian. For instance, according to Alexa, a web information aggregator, only 5% of gbatemp.net and TorrentFreak users are from Canada.
Mod chip sellers like the CCER’s members and BitTorrent sites have a synergistic relationship, as BitTorrent sites deliver the pirated video games while mod chips allow them to be played. Accordingly, well known BitTorrent sites such as isoHunt and BTJunkie directed their users to make a Submission using the CCER’s form letter.TorrentFreak, a European site run by “Ernesto” which caters to the international BitTorrent community, also encouraged its readers to take advantage of CCER’s “quickand easy to use” letter wizard. A TorrentFreak post by “Corrupt Plague” (surely someone with our best interests at heart) reads:
“I have done my part and sent a letter, now you do yours. And BTW, Am I the only non-Canadian doing this?”
Similarly, another TorrentFreak poster stated in regards to the CCER form letter:
“Letter sent! Do the same everyone! Just use the wizard linked in the article. If your (sic) not from Canada, just Google some address there or something : Most bittorrent sites are hosted in Canada, so this is epic loose for everyone!”
In case anyone is wondering where all these TorrentFreak visitors are coming from, here is the breakdown, according to Alexa, of TorrentFreak’s traffic:
More demographic breakdown:
In other words, CCER is applying their circumvention skills to game Canadian democracy. When our Government opened its doors to listen to the views of Canadians on important issues related to copyright reform, CCER attempted to flood the gates with a barrage of form letter submissions. According to these website statistics, the biggest portion of these letters appear to come from college-age American men – i.e. CCER’s customer base. I hope the policy-makers in our Government realize where these letters are coming from (both the authors and the signatories) and take them for what they are – a bunch of commercial pirates and their customers desperately trying to hold up their soon-to-be outdated business model.
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