The EU is pressuring Canada for significant amendments to its intellectual property regime this week as Canadian officials take part in trade negotiations in Brussels, an internal EU strategy document shows.

The document, obtained by The Wire Report, is intended to help EU officials “facilitate the coordination of messages in the contacts with the respective government authorities,” and shows EU designs to use the negotiations as “a good opportunity to exert pressure” on Canada to change its intellectual property laws.

Dated Nov. 16, 2009, the text is contained within a broader wish list for the EU Commission; however The Wire Report obtained only the section dealing with Canadian intellectual property rights.

Canadian and European negotiators are meeting in Brussels this week from Jan. 18-22 for a second round of negotiations toward establishing a common working document. The first round of talks took place in Ottawa last fall, from Oct. 19-23, where “no real negotiation took place regarding IPR [intellectual property rights] issues,” the document says.

The EU mission in Ottawa would not comment on the document. However one EU official said intellectual property issues are on the agenda for this week’s negotiations.

A third round of talks is scheduled for April 19-22 in Ottawa.

The document says there are “serious weaknesses” in Canada’s intellectual property regime and that, although Canada signed two Internet treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) more than 10 years ago, it “has no apparent intention to ratify” them.

The EU refers to Canada’s failed initiatives on copyright reform—Bill C-60 in 2005 and Bill C-61 in 2008, both of which died on the order paper—and says this explains “why Canada is now home to some of the world’s most popular illegal online file-sharing Internet sites.”

But digital rights advocates contend that Canada’s copyright regime is strong and that there is little evidence that harsher laws—such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the U.S.—result in less digital copyright infringement. 

An Internet leak late last year showed that the EU is pushing for significant amendments to Canada’s copyright law through the trade deal, including initiatives to:

• extend Canada’s term of copyright from 50 to 70 years;
• provide legal protection for digital rights management, or “digital locks” on software and content; as well as legal protection against the distribution, sale, or import of programs or devices that “circumvent” digital rights management;
• legislate enforcement measures for the protection of copyright so that judicial authorities may order “the communication of banking, financial or commercial documents under the control of the opposing party, subject to the protection of confidential information”;
• and implement the Internet treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (Canada has committed to implementation of the treaties, but not ratification).

It’s unclear to what degree Canada may bow to foreign pressure in its copyright reform process. The Government of Canada held cross-country, public consultations on copyright reform in the summer of 2009 that drew 8,012 submissions from individuals and 143 from organizations.

The EU document refers to the consultations, but speculates that “this might have been a tactic to confuse (much negative feedback is to expected from anti-IPR lobbyists).”

Mélisa Leclerc, a spokeswoman for International Trade Minister Stockwell Day, acknowledged by email that the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) aims to form a closer partnership on intellectual property rights.

But the agreement “will not override the copyright consultations,” Leclerc said, adding that the ministers of industry and heritage are now taking stock of the consultation submissions.

The CETA is “not the basis for copyright or other intellectual property reform in Canada” and “Canada would need to be satisfied that any agreement developed through the negotiation reflects Canadian interests,” Leclerc said by email.

Observers say they expect the EU-Canada trade agreement to rival the breadth of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Canada’s chief negotiator in the talks, Steve Verheul, told an agricultural conference in November that, “We have agreed from the start everything is on the table.”

Leclerc said an “ambitious” agreement with the EU could boost the Canadian economy by $12 billion.

The EU document says European Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton sent letters to Day and two other ministers—presumably Industry Minister Tony Clement and Heritage Minister James Moore—“to express her concerns regarding the IPR situation in Canada.”

But the EU does not appear to be highly optimistic about changing Canada’s copyright regime.

“[O]ptimism should be tempered since, despite pressure from the USA, high-level commitments from CA [Canada] (prime minister and throne speeches) and our commissioner’s letter of April 2009, little concrete moves have been observed in recent years,” the document says.

“We can hope that the negotiation of the bilateral CETA … will provide a good opportunity to exert pressure on CA regarding the upgrade of its IPR regime to developed-country standards.”

Consumer and digital rights advocates have also expressed concerns about closed-door trade negotiations surrounding the U.S.-led Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

Canada is one of a handful of countries taking part in the ACTA negotiations, along with the United States, the European Union, Switzerland, Japan, and a few other states.

Critics have called the secret negotiations a form of U.S. “policy laundering” intended to circumvent the work of WIPO. Some countries in the negotiations are proposing significant intellectual property reforms modeled on the controversial DMCA in the U.S.

The U.S. has been cited as one of the few net-exporting nations of intellectual property in the world; as a result, it pressures its trading partners to adopt stronger copyright laws.

Now, Europe appears to be joining that club, said Michael Geist, a blogger, advocate for consumers’ digital rights, and law professor at the University of Ottawa.

 “In the U.S., it’s Hollywood driving this. In Europe, it’s many of the name-brand the couture fashion types, along with the pharmaceutical industry,” Geist said.

Clement told The Hill Times last November that Canada’s copyright framework is “fully consistent with its international obligations”; and that it “provides strong intellectual property protections” in the digital environment.

In the House of Commons last year, Clement also stated that that the ACTA negotiations are “subservient” to any copyright legislation tabled in Parliament.

Still, Geist said Clement’s words do not reassure him, given the international pressures in the ACTA negotiations, which could be concluded by the end of 2010, and the progress of the EU-Canada trade talks.

“When you see policy moving forward on those two fronts, Stockwell Day is quickly becoming the minister of copyright in Canada,” he said. 

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