Frances Seghers, executive vice-president, worldwide government affairs, Sony Pictures Entertainment, is on a mission. It’s her job to encourage the world’s governments to update copyright laws and join international efforts to protect the incomes of media producers from pirates.

And the mission seems to be working. One by one, with a few notable exceptions, countries are falling in line and bringing their laws into the digital age.

Lately, Canada has been in her sights. She spoke to Playback a day after a presentation to students at York University in Toronto and shortly after the Throne Speech indicated Canadian copyright laws were to be overhauled.

How was your reception at York University?

It wasn’t the best evening… this is the generation that thinks [illegal] downloading is a right and not a wrong. I’m trying to explain that it’s not a victimless crime. Students think ‘it’s out there so I should be allowed to have it,’ but really it’s like money laundering. Students have more time than money so they are more prone to copy than others, but our focus is not just on them.

Why pressure Canada about copyright instead of bigger volume offenders, such as China?

In Sweden, we went after Pirate Bay through the courts and they agreed [that laws were being broken]. Their temporary shutdown created a huge drop in traffic. Now we are going after other countries. Four of the top BitTorrent sites are in Canada… things have gotten out of hand.

Current Canadian law is in the analog age. Why doesn’t Canada think [strengthening copyright law] isn’t in its own interest? If you can’t provide the protection, you will hurt your own. Sony invested a quarter billion in production in Canada and piracy eats into revenues and legit business. [Updating the laws] will reduce what will be felt from illegal activities in Canada.

It’s not radical: the EU and 30 countries have already signed on. It should not be a hard ask. The Throne Speech was a good step, but lots of bills have been introduced and failed to become law.

China is different. They control all of the terms and conditions of a contract. Even if we have a big movie there, we don’t make a lot of money.

We think piracy can be addressed and restricted in a reasonable fashion that will lead people back to legit models… make them see there are risks to the illegal stuff and make it easier to [download] legally. A lot of consumers want a choice and we are trying to address that. People are okay to pay, they just don’t want to pay three times.

So if legal is the stick, what kind of carrots have you tried?

Movies are now rolled out simultaneously across the globe… It’s more expensive to do it that way but it makes sense financially.

We [tried] to shrink the window between theatrical release and DVD sales, [but] the theaters are freaked out about it. They think it will cost them money. For Alice [in Wonderland], the theatrical to DVD window was cut from four months to three. Some theaters announced they were not going to show the film. It was like a game of chicken.

We tried a built-in link to the Internet. Consumers would be able to access Sony movies earlier than they went on sale. They chose Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to launch the service. It had been in theaters a month when it became available and the theaters just yanked it. It’s easy to say ‘change your business model’ but it’s not that easy.

What’s next?

We [Sony, Warner Bros., NBC Universal, Paramount and Fox, but not Disney] are pushing for an online legal movie download site. There are [similar sites already] such as iTunes or Amazon, but these are not portable services. This consortium [which also includes Comcast, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco Systems and Best Buy] is trying to set up a rights ‘locker in the clouds’ as a way to standardize the delivery. As a consumer, you go in wherever, whenever. You will get a ‘rights token’ and register your devices. It will be like a personal domain of your own devices.

What about micropayments and other payment models?

I don’t think there is a single answer. It is hard to compare what works in music and pictures. The setup costs are different… There are different windows of release. Only two out of 10 movies make their money at the box office. We have tended to go with collective licences. We are happy to license. This is not to say there will not be some form of micropayments.