ESA Canada employs games to push anti-piracy legislation

by Ben Gilbert { Apr 25th 2009 at 2:00AM }

In an effort to ... ahem ... coolly persuade Canadian members of Parliament towards passing future anti-piracy legislation, the Canadian ESA hosted 10 "MPs" this past Tuesday in Ottawa. With the intention of "updating politicians on the condition of the Canadian gaming industry," the event showcased a variety of games developed in Canada and helped to educate lawmakers on the effects Canadian game development has on the country's economy, according to Canada.com.

Danielle Parr, executive director of the ESAC, told the MPs that Canada is the, "third-largest game developer in the world, behind only the U.S. and Japan" and urged them to pass legislation banning the sale of mod chips, apparently still not illegal in the country. In hilariously stereotypical fashion, MP Mike Lake "took a break from playing the popular video game NHL 09" and spoke to the event's cause, saying legislation should be passed "in this Parliament," which is to say by 2010. This is a decidedly different tactic than those employed in the past by the ESAC and seems to be significantly more effective, no?

[Via GamePolitics]

Tags: canada, canadian-parliament, danielle-parr, esa-canada, esac, game-development, law, mike-lake

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

benhc911 @ Apr 25th 2009 9:45AM

I don't really care how serious you are... But a couple things to note...

Here in Canada (for whatever reason) we feel like there is a big distinction between what we call College and what we call University. College is for more direct applicational knowledge (think dental assistant or plumber), University being more for academic knowledge (think the arts, science, maths etc). I just wanted to say that before I went on, since I'll use the word University (see as that is what I attend).

Our education is far from free, however, it is most definitely cheaper than it is in the United States. My tuition for the entirety of this year was approximately 6800, and that included several extra services offered by my school, such as a supplemental health care plan (Dental, optical, prescription drugs... the things that aren't 100% covered by our health care system). I think it is interesting how we complain so much about the cost of our education here, but the US it is several times more expensive. If you are thinking about coming here for a cheap education, it doesn't really work out... We have a different tuition for foreign students as the government matches every dollar I pay with 4 of their own (my own through taxes?), something that they don't do for people from out of country.

The best is actually in the province of Quebec, where they only recently removed the governmental freeze on tuition costs (2006 or so I believe). Since then they have been raising their tuition at the maximum legal amount per year, but back in 2006 their average tuition was about 1900 a year while the rest of Canada was around 5000.

I suppose something else to note, however, is that the scholarships are a fair bit smaller here. I applied to chemical engineering with a 97% average out of high school, and got 4000 a year, plus an additional 1500 the first year (conditional on maintaining a cumulative, weighted average above 83 or so). Correct me if I`m mistaken, but marks that high in the US could have gotten me a free ride. The scholarships that I received is one of the largest standard (school supplied) scholarships in the province of Ontario (the only exception are a few scholarships that are given to 1-3 people per school, and require a great deal of essay writing and the such). There are of course scholarship/award giving groups that can be applied for, but they are generally based on volunteer work/financial need and not so much on marks. Highschools too generally have a few small awards to give to graduating students, I received about 2500.

I would never say that we have it rough here in Canada... We have the benefit of not having to pay for as extensive of a military... I suppose instead we just pour money into Healthcare (it now takes about half of our taxes). Something interesting to note is our tax scale as well (this is a bit old information, but not much has changed lately); as of 2002 52.6% of income tax was paid by the upper 10% wage earners, meanwhile the lowest 50% only paid 4.4% of the national income tax. I'm a leftest haha, so any effort to equalize wealth and supply national services are a big win in my opinion.

wow, long response to a stupid comment >_> back to surfing pr0n and not studying.

WLT @ Apr 25th 2009 2:37AM

Damn Canadian Bacon eating bastards! How dare they try to stop my access to mod chips for my Sega Saturn so I can play Dragon Force!

Gum @ Apr 25th 2009 3:18AM

Canadian bacon... Pemeal maybe, big maybe.
Regular bacon yes. Funny how I've only ever heard Canadian bacon in the states. Yet the regular cheese at subway is known as American cheddar at an American franchise.

benhc911 @ Apr 25th 2009 9:47AM

WOW i hate the comment system... that comment was for the guy who had said we had free education... Who's comment has been entirely removed... woooooot

BlaqueBeird @ Apr 25th 2009 11:57AM

What is Canadian Bacon, anyway? Is it what we call peameal bacon? Or something else that's weird and not really Canadian at all, like igloos and saying eh (The only person I've ever met who uses 'eh' is Native) .

golobulus @ Apr 25th 2009 3:10PM

"third-largest game developer in the world, behind only the U.S. and Japan"

in my entire 20 years of gaming, this is news to me.

Gum @ Apr 25th 2009 3:23AM

I don't understand why mp's is in quotations. It stands for member of parliament, big whoop.

Alphathon @ Apr 25th 2009 4:58AM

I totally agree. Seems to suggest that an MP is some kind of joke (hey, it just a title, and one not only used in Canada). Good old joystiq strengthening relations between the US and the rest of the world.

Feba @ Apr 25th 2009 4:28AM

At first, I read it as "implores gamers to", which would be far more interesting. Sony already kinda has it going with the PSP, all the people screaming "STOP PIRATING GAMES YOU'RE KILLING THE SYSTEM", and so on.

Anyway, I would hope that the Canadian legislature realizes that A- The chance of America ever banning modchips is exceptionally small, and B- Canada is close to the states. All banning the sale will do is send people over the border to purchase them, instead of buying from Canadian merchants. Heck, unless you intend to look through everyone's mail, they could simply order them online from American shops.

The best case scenario is that they outsource their modchips to more willing countries.

Also, I would like to point out that modchips are relatively widely used to play import titles. By removing the consumer's ability to play foreign games on their domestic hardware, ESAC is in effect asking for the government to set up a monopoly that is beneficial for publishers located in Canada (and thus likely to be members). I wouldn't be surprised if this really has nothing to do with piracy in their minds.

Draco @ Apr 25th 2009 11:05AM

That's customs job to go through everyones mail. I know I've had HDMI cables take over a month at the border from Monoprice because customs wanted to check it for some reason or another.

Lard @ Apr 25th 2009 4:56AM

Jesus, keep American style lobbying/anti-piracy facism out of Canada.

Blank-Mage @ Apr 26th 2009 4:25AM

Yeah, what's that aboot, eh?

Sir Buzz Killington( The Artist formerly known as Jakka) @ Apr 25th 2009 5:58AM

tldr

R @ Apr 25th 2009 6:25AM

your post was 1,666 words long. 3 pages total in MS word.

Long and demonic.

t_m @ Apr 25th 2009 7:02AM

I love the fact that MPs spend a day hearing about an issue and decide its time to pass some legislation. Want to bet that NONE of them had even thought of the issue before today... but now they'll head off and pass lots of laws as fast as possible.

I bet they were told about how every download is a lost sale and that means the industry is losing BILLIONS A DAY!! Save the children!!

Not particulary saying they shouldn't have anti piracy laws.. but banning mod chips is another matter as they have many legal uses. And doesn't canada have some kind of tax on storage to cover piracy losses?

Draco @ Apr 25th 2009 11:08AM

Mod chips are losing their legal value due to systems being built region free. good 'ol HDTV standands :)

so you wont need it to import, and PS3 runs linux so that reason is gone. wouldn't be terribly suprised to see that trend continue.

Canada taxes blank CD's but not DVD's hence why a pack of 50DVDs is about 15$ and 50 CDs are $25-30.

back to Day of the Tentacle now :)