TechDirt reports
The US Trade Representative's annual Special 301 Report repeatedly points out how other countries are "failing" US IP industries by not doing enough to prevent piracy. The "name and shame" approach hasn't done much to curb piracy, although it has generated a few pressure points to leverage during trade negotiations.
Countries appear to be tiring of the annual shaming. Michael Geist reports the Canadian government has issued a rebuttal ahead of this year's Special 301 hearing.
I recently obtained documents under the Access to Information Act that confirm the Canadian government's rejection of the Special 301 process. Canada will not bother appearing today largely because it rejects the entire process.
The two-page memorandum goes directly to the heart of the issue: despite Canada now having some of the world's toughest anti-piracy laws, the USTR continues to make the annual claim that the country could be doing so much more. The memo [PDF] puts it bluntly: the USTR represents no one but industry leaders.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @04:35PM
As the acknowledgements in the beginning of the 2016 report state
In preparing the Report, substantial information was solicited from U.S. Embassies around the world, from U.S. Government agencies, and from interested stakeholders.
Who are those "interested stakeholders" then exactly? They include such luminaries as MPAA, RIAA and BSA (business software alliance). And those guys passionately hate open source. And so USTR puts countries onto their shit list for merely recommending open source, see e.g.
* IIPA would rather people "pirate" than switch to legal competitors [digital-copyright.ca]
* Copyright lobby (IIPA) demands that USTR punish governments who 'consider' mandating open source software [keionline.org]
Glad to hear Canada showing spine saying no to this US trade advancement farce.