Canadian entertainment industry begs Chinese courts to censor its movies

boing
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Why the Chinese flag?

The number one offender worldwide in the category of “applying local laws globally” is the US. Companies from around the world have to be very careful when doing business with countries like Iran or Cuba.

And as for enforcing copyrights or hate speech laws outside of their own jurisdiction, I guess European countries have got more ambitions than China has. China just wants to keep their own citizens under control; the things we ban in Europe are usually the things people here feel to be truly worth banning, and that feeling doesn’t stop at the border.

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As if the entertainment industry would have a problem with local censorship as long as they get paid.

Removing all traces of Nazism from Casablanca by German dubbing? No problem.

Selling Casablanca for 5 Cents on a Chinese Black Market? A crime against humanity.

By the way, the Swastika is only partly banned. Usage like in “The producers” would be okay. But using it lightly as a cheap device simply doesn’t go well with most people. About as well was blackface in the United States, so, you guessed it, the industry adapts. And when someone uses it as a political symbol, then yes, we assume the he or she does so in earnest and plans to overthrow the government and constitution.

We had those guys running the show once and it didn’t really work out for the continent and our country. So, sorry, not sorry.

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The order was for Google to take a couple of links off their index. As I see it, Google needs to push back and push back hard because once the public absorbs the idea that Google doesn’t have the links they want in their index, they will turn to Google’s competitors who don’t get takedown orders from the courts.
Don’t forget, having Google take a link off of their index does nothing to censor or stop the actual infringing content. It’s still there, it just that you can’t reach it via Google. Bing, Yahoo, Ask, et al will still have those links indexed and the infringing website will still be available to everyone.

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The Supreme Court of Canada is full of very good jurists. Unfortunately they don’t seem to understand the technology they have just decided to making a ruling about.

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The actual judgment is worth a read (would’ve been nice to get a link in the BB article or even in the article it linked to).

https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/16701/index.do

It’s a bit more nuanced than the general tone of comments here might suggest.

Strangely enough, the judges considered a lot of what is said here. I don’t think it can be said they don’t understand the technology they were dealing with.

And if they didn’t, that’s kinda on Google.

It’s up to the parties to make sure the points they want to make are made and any information the judges need is given to them. If they don’t, the judges do what they can with what they’ve got.

The general principle that a court can make an order of worldwide effect is long-established and not going away.

Whether any other country gives a toss about the order is of course a totally different question and one that is considered when it comes to deciding whether a court should grant such an injunction.

Whether the order will be effective in preventing the unwanted conduct is one of the several points considered.

Google accepted that delisting the websites would be effective in preventing the other company from selling the infringing stuff.

They may be wrong in that (the dissenting judges thought they were) but that’s what they chose to do.

I suppose Google are in a bit of a bind in that one - I can see it must be hard for them to argue that their search engine isn’t really that important when it comes to finding things on the internet.

The company actually selling the infringing stuff didn’t take part at all (other than to merrily continue selling the infringing content and completely ignoring all court proceedings).

If they had taken part, I suspect the outcome would have been different if only because in doing so they would have had to pin themselves down as to where they operate from and could have been targeted directly rather than having to go through Google.

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I would still say they don’t really understand the technology - as the dissenting opinion says, the original injunction was against setting up a website, which google had nothing to do with. They aren’t setting the precedent that many of the people in the thread seem to think they are setting, but I do think they are inadvertently setting a precedent that confuses Google and the internet and makes them one and the same.

I don’t think that delisting being effective is enough. Could they take me to court and get a ruling that I have to destroy the offending company’s facilities? That would be effective at stopping them (if I could do it, there are a number of other reasons why they couldn’t get this ruling), but it has nothing to do with me. They have to prove that this is someone on Google, that they are aiding and abetting. As the dissenting opinion says, the same reasoning could go after the suppliers of the offending company and make them not sell to that company anymore, or go after UPS for shipping for them. I think that’s an unacceptable hazard to submit UPS to, basically getting them wound up in who knows how many lawsuits, and I similarly think it is unacceptable to let Google get caught up in everyone else’s disputes.

Basically company E is trying to stop company D from selling knockoffs of their stuff. Basically D is operating over the internet, E can’t find them. They can get rulings saying D is violating their IP rights, but they can’t find a way to enforce them. I think the courts felt that outweighed these other considerations. But I don’t think E’s complaint ought to turn Google into the internet police.

(and yet I still hit like on your comment, because reading the ruling is the right thing to do)

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I can get on board with all of that. I don’t particularly agree with the ruling either but…

Let’s at least pick it to pieces based on what was actually said/done rather than what some third parties reported about it. :smile:

I sort of agree with this. In so far as I have any counterargument to make it would be that Google themselves do their best to try and give the impression that Google=internet. :grin:

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Well, that’s the problem with taking representations from two sides of this debate and then ruling. Both sides would like to forward the Google = Internet part of the argument, but that’s the part the court should reject.

I know that’s how courts work, but the SC can consider whatever it wants to consider, and often does see beyond the issue right in front of them. Which I guess goes back to me thinking they just don’t quite understand the technology, not on a deep level where they’ve really internalized it.

Canada’s SC is one of the best courts in the world, but obviously I know better.

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Shock, horror! You’re not suggesting some sort of inquisitorial system like those based on the Code Napoleon?

You may be able to suggest such a thing wherever you are, I gather it’s considered treasonous here in the UK. :wink:

http://www.ukipdaily.com/tag/code-napoleon/

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/436959/brexit-britains-time-choosing

Of course we know better - we’re on the internet!

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