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Could Placing Canada on the Priority Watch List Backfire?

By Michael Geist

Reaction to the inclusion of Canada on the Priority Watch List comes from an unlikely source - National Post political columnist Don Martin.  Martin writes about how President Obama is proving to be a dangerous man for Canada, using the Special 301 report as Exhibit One.  Martin writes:

The latest Obama administration move against Canada is to designate us among the world's worst offenders in failing to crack down on those ripping off movie and music artists through wide-open illegal copying. That's ridiculous. Anyone who has trolled the markets of other blacklist members such as Indonesia, Pakistan or China knows full well their very public piracy epidemic is simply not matched in Canada, the only Western country on the U.S. list.

I'll have more to say about this in a piece out next week, but I have the sense that the decision to include Canada in a group with China, Russia, etc. may ultimately backfire as it undermines whatever credibility the report might have had.  Rather than embarrassing Canadians (as CRIA's Graham Henderson suggested) it seems more likely to leave them doubting the validity of the U.S. demands.

Full post as published by Michael Geist on May 01, 2009 (boomark / email).