Using a peer-to-peer downloading program to avoid a $.99 iTunes fee might cost you bigger bucks than you have if you live in Canada.  The nation’s conservative Tory party is pushing for tougher legislation on copyright infringement, including a $500 fine for each violation.

The National Post reports that the updated Copyright Act of Canada will include a fine for each “personal use download” obtained through file sharing programs like BitTorrent and Limewire.  The bill to be introduced later this week also aims to make it illegal to unlock cell phones and copy music from protected CDs to iPods.   

Canada’s current Copyright Act can charge a maximum of $20,000 for each infringed material, but lawmakers are concerned it only targets commercial cases and not enough individuals.  The bill hopes to level the “playing field.”  University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist commented, “The core really is a desire to satisfy U.S. pressure by enacting something very close to the US digital Millennium Copyright Act.”   

BoingBoing.net noted that those most likely to be affected by the new fines are college-aged young adults, raising the issue that the fees could primarily harm those from paying education expenses—hardly a solution to strengthen the country’s economy.  But Geist also notes that “individual infringements” isn’t clearly defined in the bill, neither is the amount to be fined.  In his blog he writes:

While there are still many questions about this provision (does it target downloading or uploading? does it exempt sound recordings covered by the private copying levy?  is the $500 a set amount or a maximum? is it per infringement or cover all activity?  does it require actual evidence that files made available are downloaded?), consider a case involving 1000 song files, not an unusually high number.  The "retail" value of those files is roughly $1000, yet on a per infringement basis the Prentice proposal could lead to a damage award of $500,000. Even small scale cases would lead to huge awards - 50 songs could lead to a $25,000 fine.  

Similar updates to the Copyright Act have lost to battles by Canada’s grassroots activists, who convinced lawmakers to vote against such measures they found to be too in tune with harsh US copyright laws.