What about in other countries like Canada?
One thing that really bugs me about the Conservatives, and Harper in particular, is their willingness to bow to the U.S. government; our new copyright law has a provision for format shifting, giving people the right to rip a DVD, Blu-ray, etc. to their own hard drive; however, the bill also contained something akin to the U.S. DMCA: it's now illegal to circumvent digital locks. The latter section was specifically due to pressure from the U.S. government.
Now for the good news: our laws intends to punish "bad actors", those who copy for distribution and/or profit. Non-commercial offenders face a minimum penalty of $100 to a maximum of $5000 while commercial offenders face $20,000 per infringement if the copyright holder sues for statutory damages instead of actual damages. So, why would they go the capped statutory route? Because they're guaranteed
at least $100; if they choose actual damages they risk getting less than that, for example, in the case of one who rips one's own discs for one's own use the actual damage is likely to be nil. But, the law also includes the following guidance for its application by judges:
in the case of infringements for noncommercial purposes, the need for an award to be proportionate to the infringements, in consideration of the hardship the award may cause to the defendant, whether the infringement was for private purposes or not, and the impact of the infringements on the plaintiff.
It also limits the offender's liability no matter the number of infringements:
In such cases, statutory damages will be reduced to a one-time payment of between $100 and $5000 for all infringements that took place prior to the lawsuit.
