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Canada Immune From RIAA?
Nick McKay writes "Tech Central Station is carrying a story on how Canadians are legally allowed to copy music not only in the home environment, but also on P2P networks such as Kazaa."
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It seems as if Canada has become the land of the free, while the United States has become seemingly less thrilling to live in. I, for one, would be glad to be able to make legal copies of music and other goods, and only having to pay a small tax on media and (possibly) computer products. This would make it much easier to pay the RIAA and similar evil organizations, and would keep P2P infurioratingly legal.
... you know where to go. No more 3rd-world country that nobody has every heard of (Hurray!)
I have a feeling that emigration to Canada will become increasingly more common if it gets to the point where if you have a file on your computer that may have possibly originated from a P2P network or other illegal source, you could pay hefty fines and jail terms. Will Canada border-hopping now include underage drinking and underage stealing? You decide. So, now if you want to escape the U.S. Justice system
The only problem with this method is that companies cannot track who owes them how much, and which companies get the bigger share of the chunk of taxes. Why not have it so that, people report how many songs they downloaded and what they are, and that determines their tax (or refund, if they haven't downloaded anything). Then, the companies can easily divvy out the money to one another (but some companies will like the equal-split method better * wink wink *)
- - - - - - -
Orppf urp mf y.ppcxn. yflcbi otcnnov C am yflcbi yr n.apb Ekrpatv (Dvorak -> Qwerty)
"Canada Immune From RIAA?"
Being that the last letter in RIAA stands for "America", I would hope that all nations outside of the US are immune..
Trolling is a art,
Wow....I bet a Canadian company could make a fortune selling high speed Internet access to those in the US, Or possibly just a high speed proxy service.
Then when the RIAA asked them for the user of the IP that is 'stealing' their music...they could tell them to take a flying leap.
Any bets as to how long it will take some enterprising Canadian to come up with this business model?
Or as to how long before the RIAA starts buying off memebers of Canada's parliment, the way that they buy our Senators and Representatives?
To quote Jay Currie (emphasis mine):
Audio recording media is defined as "Analog Audio Casette Tapes," "MiniDisc, CD-R Audio and CD-RW Audio" and "CD-R and CD-RW." [2] This does not include hard drives (I recall discussion of extending the levy to hard drives), so therefore your hard drive is not "audio recording media" and thus the Act does not legalize file sharing.
This being said, it would be harder to argue if you immediately burned the downloaded songs to an audio CD, promptly deleting the copy on your hard drive.
Wait a sec, I am Canadian. Never mind.
I am proud to be a Canadian. Especially after seeing Bowling for Columbine... makes you think huh!
Lax marijuana laws? Check.
Can marry another man if for some reason I was feeling saucey? Check.
and now freedom to share music?
Are they accepting applications??
Read the act more carefully. Back-ups of any and all digital media for personal use is absolutely covered.
I am from a small, grease-loving country in the north called Ca-na-da.
The amendment to the Act legalized copying of sound recordings of musical works onto audio recording media for the private use of the person who makes the copy (referred to as "private copying"). In addition, the amendment made provision for the imposition of a levy on blank audio recording media to compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright in eligible sound recordings being copied for private use.
Looks the same as fair use in the U.S.A. Moreover, the author of this article says that the DMCA is what makes file sharing illegal in the U.S.A. This isn't true, and probably hints at the level of understanding the author has of the situation. Unfortunately, people are going to start believing this. The author could be sued.
"sure it does canada is just another big US state like Wisconsin or Minnesota...."
Canada is bigger in area then the USA, and the 3rd largest country in the world...so read it and weep.
Ohhhhhhh CAAAANAADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Our home and native land!!!!
w00t!
Does this guy know how many megabytes are on a typical CD-R? or on a new hard drive? Let's see, the tax on a new 120Gig drive would be, what, $1200?
Therefore even if you own the CD, you have absolutely no right to transfer it to a different format. With your CD, you purchase a right to listen to that music on that medium only. You do not have any rights to transfer it to any other medium. There is no provision in law to allow you to do so.
Having said that, MP3 players are sold and the BPI (our equivilant of the RIAA) have stated that they have "no plans" at the moment to go chasing people who do download and transfer music from CD's to other mediums.
I know Slashdot isn't a hot-bed of legal eagles, but does anyone know of anything different? This somewhat spooks me a little that the CD I purchased cannot be legally transfered to my mp3 player for the gym.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Hey Nick McKay and Tech Central Station: SHUT UP.
This was one of our best kept secrets..
Thanks for waving the proverbial red cape in front of the raging bull (RIAA).
S
So that means every time you buy a CD to backup your Word documents, or photos, or home movies etc you pay a $0.77 tax which ends up going to the music industry.
They give it with one hand and take it with the other.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
The blank CD levy was a tradeoff that gives Canadians very specific rights:
I can borrow a friend's CD and copy that CD onto a blank.
There's nothing about P2P networks, and until the levies come in on hard drives (in the works) I don't see how any copying involving hard drives can be considered covered.
From the article:
"In Canada, if I own a CD and you borrow it and make a copy of it that is legal private copying; however, if I make you a copy of that same CD and give it to you that would be infringement. Odd, but ideal for protecting file sharers.
Every song on my hard drive comes from a CD in my collection or from a CD in someone else's collection which I have found on a P2P network. In either case I will have made the copy and will claim safe harbor under the "private copying" provision. If you find that song in my shared folder and make a copy this will also be "private copying." I have not made you a copy, rather you have downloaded the song yourself.
Note the bolded text -- "CD". P2P files are not CDs! Even if they come from a CD, they aren't on a CD when you copy them, and so you're not covered by the levy.
Comments?
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
According to the article, 70 million dollars was generated with the Candanian levy. I would be willing to bet that none of that money went to any artist.
Screw file trading. Canada is more free in ways that *really* matter, like drugs. In Canada, if you want to ingest pot, you can without being arrested by jack-booted Ashcroft thugs and thrown in prison for the rest of your life. On that same subject, their gov't isn't still feeding them the "Reefer Madness" bullshit from the 20's.
Canada seems to be a lot better in other ways too. Just watch "Bowling for Columbine"...
yeah only if you're dumb enough to buy the stuff labelled as "music discs"
;)
I can get a 100 "data" CD spindle for about $30 CDN. What? It's not meant for music you say? Well let me be the judge of that
This media levy pisses me off to no end - I've bought 100's of CD-R's over the years and I've used exactly 3 for music - and that was just for music that I already owned.
I don't want free music, I want cheaper recordable media! I'm not sure about this $0.77 per CD though - I'm sure i've bought CD's for $0.50 before on spindles.
This levy is utter B.S. I mean why not compensate SOFTWARE publishers as well as musicians? I wonder what the ratio is of pirated music vs. pirated software - especially if you take the MSRP of software - i mean it takes a lot of music CD's to equal the cost of one copy of 3ds MAX or Photoshop.
>Canada is bigger in area then the USA, and the 3rd largest country in the world...so read it and weep.
Not true. The second largest in area and by far the most coastline.
If it's not at the center, it's got to be pretty close considering that Earth itself is at the center of the known universe.
...
Well, it seems that Canada has the same rules as most of the Europen countries.
This means, that you can copy any music/video for yourself, so downloading them off the internet is OK.
However, distribution of these is still considered to be copyright infringement, so uploading stuff for which you do not the rights to publish to P2P networks is still not OK and you can be sued for it.
As I understand, things work the same way in the USA, too.
Would someone please mod the article -1, Troll?
Real life is overrated.
I would like to direct your attention to the Private Copying section of the Canadian Copyright act here.
Specifically, 80.2(c) -- Subsection (1) [the private copying exception] does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following : (c) communicating to the public by telecommunication;
In order for file sharing as we know it to be legal, you would have to make the argument that putting something up on Kazaa is NOT communicating to the public by telecommunications.
I'm not saying it can't be done (indeed, I don't belive any of this has ever actually been tested in court), but good fucking luck.
Something like dc++ with a private hub between friends would be a much less challenging scenario to argue, as the general public isn't involved.
Note that the intent of this law was that people would be able to share music (note that this ONLY applies to MUSICAL AUDIO RECORDINGS -- spoken word recordings, or even sound effect recordings (and certainly not video) aren't covered by this) with thier family and friends without it being illegal. Basically, they looked at the fact that most people would be considered criminals under the current laws, and decided that there's really no point in that, and used the situation as an excuse to find another way for the goverenment to get money out of people. But since you're Canadian, you're used to that by now.
Kazaa and such are not for that purpose -- they are intended to share music with the anonymous internet in exchange for getting music you want back from the anonymous interent. If you ever wind up in court, and try and defend yourself with this exception, the intent of the law is going to be taken into account by the judge.
I hate to break the news, but we've been paying the same tax since the mid 1980's. Al Gore was one of the sponsors of a digital revenue bill that passed back then. As a studio owner in Nashville, I got a copy of the bill before it was passed. It levied a tax on all blank media, not just digital, and a tax of up to $100. on all digital recorders imported into the US. I don't know if that's the final version that passed, but it did pass. one phrase that stuck out to me was that the revenues generated would go into a pool which would be split up among artists "after due administrative costs have been deducted". All I know is that I've paid that tax on every cassette, DAT, reel of tape, and CD-R that I've used since then, even though my business(radio commercials) involves only releasing content created by me.
Says who?!?? There's plenty of people that are opposing this, not just manufacturers: here and and here, there's plenty more. Plus I've sent letters to whatever MP I could contact.
It's had some effect, since the 'new' rates were supposed to be introduced in Jan 2003.
I'm hardly 'indifferent' about it!
AC comments get piped to
This made me think of an interesting aspect of globalization and migration.
Governments are starting to realize that the future health of their nations depend on encouraging immigration (in the case of coountries with ageing populations) and discouraging emmigration (in the case of countries losing their citizens).
A large part of the USA's economic and political strength comes from its attractiveness to migrants, especially skilled migrants. Compare the USA's Green Card programme with the immigration programmes offered by EU countries...
Now, Canada is to many migrants as attractive as the US, just slightly colder, maybe. It certainly has a reputation as being more hospitable for political refugees than most EU countries.
P2P is just one of many civil liberties, but if one takes the value of migration to a logical extreme, won't we see future governments actively competing for skilled migrants, offering better legal systems, more civil liberties, easier integration, etc. etc.
It's an optimistic viewpoint, but perhaps globalization will bring competition into governance in a way never seen before. Living in a country is, after all, a vote and an investment.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
for the hairy smelly putrid ass kissing dog licking dirt sucking shit eating grinning hole in the head turd flipping inbread hippo humping kentucky fried love of God....
its copyright infringment - it is not stealing, damnit. the SCOTUS has made that clearer than the hole in your head.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
- Booze and TOTALLY NAKED women in our strip clubs
- Toronto (much like NYC I think) allows women to walk around topless (not that any do, but the possibility is there)
- Casinos popping up all over the place
- An increasingly larger separation of Church and State (hence the allowed gay marriages)
- Better beer
- Cheaper CDs, DVDs, computer hardware, software, and just about any other form of entertainment
- Cheaper medicine
Of course, a lot of this is paid for with much higher taxes, user fees, levies, and the fact we all live in igloos and have to hunt baby seals once the snow starts in August.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
On Sept 10th I received several IM's on my k-lite from CRIA (google cache). They seemed to be under the impression that I was somehow breaking the law and needed a reminder of that. The notice came across as well-intentioned and non-threatening, just an appeal to traders of mp3's to think about the poor artists and how wonderful the industry is.
If anyone is interested in reading the message text I could post it, just ask.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
The term 'American' does indeed tend to refer to someone from the USA. That is true in many places...
However, there are these larger areas in most (6/7) cases containing more then one country called continents and Canada is part of North America along with the USA and Mexico. Amazing, huh? It's too bad the RIAA picked such a nebulas term for its name- but perhaps they do have members in Canada and Mexico. I won't even mention South America.
To think that they could make just as much money from levying a tax and spend less time aggrevating their customers seems so foreign to them that it must be a Canadian thing, huh?
Much of the World (especially Europe) has the same attitude. People will do what people will do. Let them. Get over it. Find a way to compensate or accept it.
Instead, in the US the prevailing notion is to resolve by bullying and brute force. How young and inexperienced a country the US is. As strong as it is, it still hasn't learned how to play nice with others.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
Don't forget that due to the WTO a lot of laws that apply only to one country become unilateral due to the trade agreement.. Circumventing each countries sovereignty in the process.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Audio Cassettes (40 minutes or more in length): 29 cents
CD-R or CD-RW: 21 cents
CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio or MiniDisc: 77 cents
So the actual levy on CD-R/RW is 21 cents, not 77 cents.
I believe the Copyright Board is considering a proposed increase in the levy on CD-R/RW to 59 cents per CD and applying the levy to hard drives, blank DVDs and memory cards. No decision has been made and I honestly believe the Copyright board will back down from the proposed levy on hard drives and other computer related media since industry outcry has been substantial. The obvious benefit to the levy is I can legally borrow and make a copy of a friend's CD for my own personal use and know that I am not committing a crime.
Many people in Canada are also not aware that you can apply for an exemption from the levy if your primary use of the levied media falls under certain categories. So companies such as the one I work for have an exemption from the levy since we only use blank CDs for in-house software.
nice link, try mine. http://nationmaster.com/graph-T/geo_are_tot
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible -W.B.
understand that every single person in Canada pays a tax which goes in a fund for the labels
Ah - wrong. As others have pointed out, it's a levy, not a tax. Subtle difference.
And it's not "every single person in canada" - it's "every single person who buys blank audio CDs and tapes in Canada" BIG difference.
it has been suggested that we adopt something similar here
I think you'll note that it has not only been suggested, but it's been implemented as well, as part of the 1991 Audio Home Recording Act. (Of course, in this case, it actually is a tax.)
We Canadians don't pay $0.77 for each blank CD we buy -- only for blank AUDIO CDs. The blank Audio CDs can be bought in audio stores for much more money and have some magic bit pre-burned or whatever. Normal DATA CDs that don't have this audio flag on them won't work in consumer audio CD burners that go in your stereo, only in computer burners.
Next -- this law may legalize downloading from P2P, but does NOT legalize making your copy publicly available on P2P systems, which is all the recording industry cares about anyhow. That would be a "public performance" or "publishing" or "distribution" -- none of which are legal.
Oh, and just for the record, pot isn't legal here. You just get a ticket now instead of a court date. This means that the cops will no longer be ignoring pot because of the paperwork burden, and the likelihood of potsmokers getting busted has gone UP.
One man's misunderstanding coudl quickly become another's admission into the prison queen hall of fame. Personally I think Mr. Currie misunderstands the meaning behind where the original files can come from. I think you'll find that even Canada will eventually rule that you can only make copies from the original CD if and only if you own it. Canada is part of the WIPO and as such all members will eventually have to standardize their copyright laws. Why do you think the US extended its copyright terms to life of author plus 70 years? Disney might get the blame but in reality it was to bring the European and US terms into balance. Disney simply went along.
As in The RIAA, Eh?
(Sorry)
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
"A small levy on storage media, say a penny a megabyte, would be more lucrative than trying to extract 60 million dollars from a music obsessed, file sharing, thirteen year-old."
That's about $7 per CD-R, and $40 per DVD-R?!!! BOVINE SCAT!!!
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
I worked in record stores for a while, and I began to notice that the CD-R's designated by the manufacturer (eg. Maxell) as being expressly for copying music were much more expensive than CD-R's intended for data storage. Even if the brand is the same. I asked why this should be, and a co-worker pointed out that the infamous Canadian anti-copying tax only applied to the former, not the latter.
Now, I am sure that both kinds of CDs work equally well for copying data or music. But some CD-Rs put out by the 'non-white-label' manufacturers explicitly specify on the package that they are only 'for music.' Apparently the levy only applies to these kinds of CD-Rs.
So, if my co-worker is correct, it sounds like you can easily avoid paying this tax. Can anyone confirm/deny?
"He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once." - Steve Jobs on Bill Gates
Well companies have been doing it for some time its called 'globalization'---- live in one state, Canada - for the free downloads, and Buy in a different one, the US for cheap CD's & CDR's---- but whats the betting that now people, rather than corporations can do it the loophole gets closed, incidentally, and maybe a bit offtopic, the UK used to be known by the car industry as 'Treasure Island' due to the high prices, now there is a sizable 'net industry importing cheap cars from the continent
boycott-riaa.com reported on this several months ago. However, I just though of something. What if I could select an ISP in Canada? My traffic would all look like it originates from there, and the DMCA subpenas would be useless against a canadian owned IP. Any comments on the technical aspects? It would definately be worth an extra 10 bucks if I could find some way to do it.
See, that's funny, because Canada (is possibly the only country to?) already fought off an American invasion of conquest.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
The CPCC levy isn't the only reason why private copying via P2P networks is not a legal problem in Canada. There are privacy laws (about which the US has already complained are a hinderance to their terrorist investigations) that prevent the RIAA from issuing subpoenas to Canadian ISPs demanding their logs and subscribers.
This doesn't mean that your file-sharing information is not inaccessible. If you're sharing music, you'll be fine--you're not in violation of Canadian law and practice. If you're sharing kiddy porn or hate literature, the Canadian police can get the data because you're involved in another crime.
The CBC has a brief article and opinion about this.
If the RIAA was to follow the lead of Canadian direct broadcast satellite providers, they'd make an appeal to morality to address their problem, since the laws here won't help them.
The Seventh Rule: Take others more seriously than yourself, particularly when you are leading them.
Since corperations vote with their dollars, I'd rather combat them by voting with my dollars. The more of my money my government depends on to represent me, the less my government needs/wants from corperations to represent *them*.
Neither system is perfect, but I really do think that the US is basically like Canada; only corperations are the benifactors of government-supported welfare (for things like entering foreign markets risk-free or controlling the market by 'purchasing' policy/law makers) instead of people.
With that said, it should be a free world. I don't think either system is 'right', but I'd rather be in Canada, and know what I'm paying upfront and what I'm getting for it, rather than fighting tooth and nail every day, everytime a corperate interest decides it wants the rules changed.
I see higher taxes as a form of insurance against corperate oligarchies, and I'm all too happy to pay as long as I believe it's working to a reasonable degree.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I'd like to calm the rhetoric. Sure, common sense would indicate the RIAA's copyrights have been violated. But copyright has been heavily legislated over the past century to the point that common sense or common law is nearly absent. It has such things as compulsory licences and device royalties. Morality should be confined to governing personal actions and advocating revisions to intellectual property law. It is disingenuous for the RIAA to invoke morality when if anything they have had excessive influence in crafting legislation.
IANAL but lets look at the law. Once you know the tokens, legalese is not usually harder to parse than APL :) Apologies for a
US-centric viewpoint but I believe a statutory situation exists in
all other common-law countries with different details. There's an
excellent copy of the United States Code, Title 17 - Copyrights at Cornell.
Chapter 10 covers DIGITAL AUDIO RECORDING DEVICES AND MEDIA .
Particularly interesting is:
Sec. 1008. - Prohibition on certain infringement actions... No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings
Simply breathtaking! The words "this title" mean Title 17, which contains all of US copyright law. The first "based on" means these things are not actionable as contributory negligence ("burglars tools"). The second "based on" means non-commercial use of these things does not violate copyright. Wow!
The definitions in Sec.1001 would seem to include computers. They sure are designed, advertised and used that way amongst others. But all is not [Guns'N'] roses. The manufacturers of these recording devices would seem to owe a device tax that gets paid through the Librarian-of-Congress (of all people!) to the RIAA as specified. There are also requirements related to the Serial Copy Management System. I trust that RIAA have settled this with their long-standing antagonists, appliance manufacturers, now including Dell, HP, et al. But even if not, how does it affect me?
The term "noncommercial use" would almost certainly cover receiving music files to make recordings on a hard-disk. Offering to transmit music files might not be covered and fall under the exceptionally byzantine Sec.114 as an "interactive service". But a lawyer specialising in Copyright law should be able to give a better interpretation including case precedents. The Diamond Rio MP3 player case is probably relevant. Is there a lawyer in the house?
I think halo8 is Canadian?
Audio cassettes 40 minutes or more in length: $.29 each
Audio cassettes less than 40 minutes long: $0
CD-Rs and CD-RWs (100 megabytes or more in capacity): $.21 each
CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio and MiniDisc: $.77 each
Removable electronic memory card, removable flash memory storage medium of any type, or removable micro-hard drive: not covered
DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM or any other type of recordable or rewritable DVD: not covered
Non-removable electronic memory card or non-removable flash memory storage medium of any type incorporated into an MP3 player: not covered
Non-removable hard drive incorporated into an MP3 player or similar device ... primarily to record and play music.: not covered
Microcassettes (commonly used in dictating machines): $0
Digital audio tapes (DATs): $0
As you can see, the 77 cents people keep mentioning in their posts only applies to those CD-R specifically designated for recording audio, which nobody uses anyway (although there are some standalone audio CD recording units which require them).
What I find insulting is that I run a recording studio, and every single cd I buy for my own or my clients' music puts a little money into the pockets of people like Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne... although I recently discovered that, if you import CDs for your own use (i.e. buy them online from outside canada) the levy doesn't apply.
"In fact, you could not have designed a law which more perfectly captures the peer to peer process. "Private copying" is a term of art in the Act. In Canada, if I own a CD and you borrow it and make a copy of it that is legal private copying; however, if I make you a copy of that same CD and give it to you that would be infringement. Odd, but ideal for protecting file sharers.
Every song on my hard drive comes from a CD in my collection or from a CD in someone else's collection which I have found on a P2P network. In either case I will have made the copy and will claim safe harbor under the "private copying" provision. If you find that song in my shared folder and make a copy this will also be "private copying." I have not made you a copy, rather you have downloaded the song yourself."
I disagree. The uploader's computer, is the one making the copy and sending it to the downloader. So it sounds like p2p sharing of copyrighted material is illegal in Canada.
Vote for Pedro
I've examined the Copyright Act before over this specific issue. While it is obvious that the Act permits, say, the copying of borrowed cds, it is not obvious that it allows large-scale peer-to-peer networks. Certainly a small P2P network consisting of friends and aquaintences would fall under "private copying", but transferring files to millions of random people can hardly be called "private" anything. There are sufficient grounds for a good legal fight over this.
At the same time, I don't expect the CPCC (~RIAA) to adopt the RIAA's tactics anytime soon. People here have a much more lassiez-faire attitude towards these things, and as long as they don't get totally out of control (ie : people still buy the odd cd they really want), the copyright holders probably won't try to fight an unwinnable war.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
As the RIAA's "sue your customer" campaign begins to run into stiffening opposition and serious procedural obstacles it may be time to think about a "Plan B". A small levy on storage media, say a penny a megabyte, would be more lucrative than trying to extract 60 million dollars from a music obsessed, file sharing, thirteen year-old.
Not particularly. Who here would pay $7 extra per CD-R (I can get them for less than a buck in Canada)? Or an extra $48 on DVD-R media? Americans would be outraged, and would import en-masse from outside of the country, probably from Canada.
Oh, wait, I get it now... Why didn't I think of that?
--Dan
His facts seem to agree with yours to me, assuming he is Canadian.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
I'm really tired of this "Freedom and free market crap". Not trying to troll here, so here me out. I think you'll find your Freedom only applies when it's convient for major corporations, and that the free market reigns supreme largely for less affluent Americans. The rich get laws passed in their favor (DMCA comes to mind, so does that little executive order of Bush's that lets oil execs off the hook for any nastiness in Iraq), they get government subsidies and garanteed loans, the get free trade when it's good for them and tarriffs when it isn't. Meanwhile my Brother's job is being sent to India while he tries to avoid sending my niece to an abysmal public school.
I want the government watching out for me. It's the only thing big enough to stand against corporations like the RIAA. If I go up against the RIAA, I'll get crushed. Just like those 261 poor bastards that're about to have their lives ruined. Simply put, it's in my best interests to have the goverment do something like this (and please dont' start arguing this isn't in my best intrests. It may not be, but letting the RIAA run rampant certainly isn't).
I guess what I'm saying is, I'm tired of seeing people get behind policies that screw them over in the name of a free market that doesn't really exist anyways.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You are allowed to make a personal copy from an original, meaning you can borrow an original from a friend or the library and burn or rip all you want ([Canadians] pay for it when we buy blank CD-Rs).
From what I understand, you CANNOT copy the copy. See this for some details.
So if that follows, you can legally download from P2P *only if* it's an original. Since you typically have to rip it, it's already one generation away from the original.
In addition: this seems to indicate the resulting copy *has to* be on a medium for which you have paid the levy. To quote:
IANAL, and when it gets this complicated, I'm kinda glad for that...
Interestingly, the levy only applies to BLANK media. To sell a hard drive MP3 player, prerecord a little "welcome" tune on there, and you're off the hook.
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
drugs are the last peice of freedom you should be worried about, allright? thanks to cretien and his liberal anti-terrorist bills, by just associating with me, a potential terrorist, YOU BECOME A POTENTIAL TERRORIST! there is no freedom of association, the freedoms of the press are a joke, freedom of expression never did exist (it was limited from the start in our "charter of rights and freedoms"), the military can declare ANY zone or area under military law, the banks have mandatory obligations to csis to report any suspicious activity and to report all credit and financial transactions you do to them...we can be deported to the united states, CANADIAN CITIZENS, for not even being accused of committing a crime---all you have to do is be a potential terorrist and you can be thrown to places like syria, saudi arabia, and the united states where torture is legal. we do not have the right to bear arms, and religious laws DO and continue to be passed, and will continue to do so until canada is no longer a country under god. do i have to mention the FLQ and the notwithstanding clause? do i have to mention known cases of canadians breaking american law, and fbi/SecretService people coming up and arresting people?
what rights do we HAVE in canada? a country with kangaroo terrorist trials behind closed doors where you don't even get a lawyer(After all, if a lawyer aids a terrorist he can be charged). and try to defend against a federal prosecutor throwing a terrorism charge or two at you, without a lawyer. goood luck.
so what rights do we HAVE? the right not to be in federal prison for fucking marijuana posession? what a joke. i hope we both get thrown in the same deportation cell so i can knock your ignorant teeth in.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Being a Canadian I do get a special warm fuzzy feeling when people from other countries talk about my country like its some kind of snow covered paradise. Sure, I take pride in that. And I'm definitely one to slag some of the more stupid things that happen in the US. But let's not get crazy.
I'm currently paying about 33% in income tax. Think about that. For convenience, let's say you're making 30k CAN. That's about 20k US. My American friends pay about 10% in income tax, so when a Canadian is taking home 20k CAN after tax and an american is taking home 27k CAN. If I was making an extra 7k a year I could pirate a lot less music. 7k a year should more than pay for insurance to give me medical coverage equivelent to what I get for "free" here in Canada. It should also cover the music I'm allowed to pirate here in Canada.
This is getting into dangerous high-level political idealogy debate area but I'd personally be willing to give up a bit of the benefits I get from being Canadian for a bit more control over where my money is spent.
From the Copyright Board of Canada: What is "Private Copying"? On March 19, 1998, Part VIII of the Copyright Act dealing with private copying came into force. Until that time, copying any sound recording for almost any purpose infringed copyright, although, in practice, the prohibition was largely unenforceable. The amendment to the Act legalized copying of sound recordings of musical works onto audio recording media for the private use of the person who makes the copy (referred to as "private copying"). In addition, the amendment made provision for the imposition of a levy on blank audio recording media to compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright in eligible sound recordings being copied for private use. The Copyright Board's decision issued today sets a levy for this purpose.
Mr. Currie writes: Every song on my hard drive comes from a CD in my collection or from a CD in someone else's collection which I have found on a P2P network. In either case I will have made the copy and will claim safe harbor under the "private copying" provision. If you find that song in my shared folder and make a copy this will also be "private copying." I have not made you a copy, rather you have downloaded the song yourself.
He is correct to state that the copy he made from his own CD to his hard drive is covered under Canada's Copyright Act. He is wrong to state that downloading a copy from somebody else's P2P application is covered -- it is not "private copying" because the person offering that copy is already in violation.
The Copyright Act states in section 80, subsection 2 that it is not "private copying" if done for any of the following purposes (my emphasis):
(a) selling or renting out, or by way of trade exposing or offering for sale or rental;
(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade;
(c) communicating to the public by telecommunication; or
(d) performing, or causing to be performed, in public.
Did this guy even read the Copyright Act? Whomever he is downloading this file from is communicating to the public by telecommunication and thus that copy is illegal.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Half the kids got books published in the US and the other half got books published in Canada or other parts of the world. Much confusion occured because everyone with an American book thought the US won the war. Also interesting is that only a few of the American books mentioned that the Whitehouse was burnt to the ground.
Statute of Westminster in 1931. So Canada did have a choice.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
well, a lot of other websites disagree.. googling for "largest countries" comes up with different numbers. Here are four sites which agree with me. which happen to the first four relevant sites from the google search. http://www.aneki.com/largest.html http://geography.about.com/library/misc/bllgcountr ies.htm
http://www.countrywatch.com/@school/largest_countr ies_area.htm
http://www.gesource.ac.uk/guide_largestcountries.h tml
and the area given in those sites is accurate to what our government says our area is.
http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/facts/supergeneral .html
I'm not ignorant, I just check facts before I blindly agree with one site...
a lot of places don't include the islands to the north in "Canada" despite the fact that they are all part of Canada.
I wonder if you could claim refugee status for this. "I face persecution and imprisonment in my country for sharing music, a perfectly legal action in Canada." I bet you could.
That would be a lark, our refugee board filled with nerds clinging desperately to their 100 GB hard drives.
Notice the last word in his posting was "eh"
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Q: What do American beer and having sex in a canoe have in common?
A: Both are fucking close to water.
Bell owned by americans?
What have you been smokeing?
All of our common carriers have expressed legislation witch restricts the foreign ownership to non controlling portions of the shares. Both Telus and bell disclose this in the footnotes of there annual and quarterly reports . While a small percentage of BCE (bells quasi parent company) and some bell ventures (like yellow pages) have ownership by americans ; any action on the part of american courts to interfer with canadian telecomunications would result in stiff opposition by the CRTC (our version of your FCC) . The CRTC is paraniod about foriengors controlling our countries infrastructure and requires that all telecomunication companies whishing to operate in Canada be owned (by a majourity not 100%) by Canadians .
Since when did propaganda become journalism? It's not more legal to make a copy of a CD or downloading MP3s here than smoking pot. The only difference here is in Canada we don't actively pursue people who transgress the law, you don't see police officers going door to door to check if everything is legal in your house eh?
The fact that the RIAA has the kind of power to come and check your PERSONAL logs at your ISP and check if you're downloading something illegal is as dubious as someone putting a videocam in my home and watching me then using the tapes against me. It's just plain unethical and illegal, you can't just barge in.
Authorities take 2-10 years to make strong cases against people, why would the RIAA just take logs and use them inside a week? Can i get arrested for saying on the net "I'm going to kill him" as a joke and then the person gets killed the day after? How strong can an ISP log be used as evidence?
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
What are you smoking? In my experience, Canadians are a bunch of insensitive, prejudiced bastards. While living in Guatemala, I'd say about 3/4 of the Canadians I met were rude, insulting, and offensive to me JUST because I'm American. I never had any negative ideas about Canadians until I travelled out of the country and met several.
It seems par for the course to be assumed to be stupid, uneducated, and some how, less "sophisticated". I can't even count the number of times I was told I'm supporting an "Imperialit Regime" because I grew up in the US, paid my taxes, and didn't revolt over foriegn policy (which I didn't make).
I even met one Canadian who told me that "Americans don't know anything about the rest of the world". This is from some fucker not only couldn't speak ANY of the local language in the country we were living, but can't even speak his own country's two languages. I, on the other hand speak English, Spanish, and Chinese. Do most Americans? No. But a fair number of southern Californians do. It's not right to just say that ALL Americans are ignorant. The best part was when he gave me a "pop quiz" on how many provinces Canada has. I knew, and then I asked him how many states the US has. He didn't know. He didn't know.
I'm a gnu world man.
1. Making and promoting an album only costs a million dollars because the industry wants it to cost a million dollars because that keeps out competition and they get to deduct all the costs from the artists' shares. P2P systems and internet radio threaten the music distribution oligopoly, which is the real reason that the RIAA has declared war. There is some evidence that during the period that the RIAA says their music sales dropped, the sales of independant music went up and that total music sales is actually up.
2. The problem I have with the US media tax is that the money goes to the RIAA members, not the artists, not smaller music labels. Even if the law were changed to that I actually bought some rights to share music when I paid my media tax, I still wouldn't like it.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Possession of fewer than 30 grams of pot is sort of legal right now, with no penalties, not even a fine.
The pot laws were struck down because they were deemed to be unconstitutional. About 3 years ago, a person went to court to get access to marihuana, arguing that he had a constitutional right to use it as medicine. The court agreed, and said the government should pass a new law that allows him legal access to pot. The court ordered that the law be struck down after a year, to give the government time to pass a new law. After 364 days, the government introduced a new regulation outlining how access to medical marihuana would be awarded.
About a year later (about 6 months ago), a 15 year old was arrested for possession of pot, but charges were dismissed because the judge decided that the law against possession had been struck down; introducing a regulation did not replace the law. Since the part of the law that made possession illegal was struck down, it is no longer illegal to possess pot. The police can still arrest you for pot possession; but if the case ever goes to trial, the charges will be dismissed. In most areas, the police have stopped arresting people for pot possession; but some jurisdictions still do, they will defer prosecution until after a new law is passed.
The decriminalization law you mention has not been passed yet, and until it does, you cannot be convicted of pot possession. The "decriminalization" bill is actually a bill to re-criminalize pot. The current political speculation is that it probably won't be passed until after Paul Martin calls an election. Since the bill will "die on the order papers" when parliament is dissolved for the election, it is likely we won't see a new pot law for at least a year. If this particular bill does get passed into law, possession of small amounts will result in a fine. All the other aspects of marihuana prohibition, like production, will remain jail-worthy offenses; in fact the penalties have been increased for most non-possession crimes.
A bit of commentary on all of this: The government has an interesting pattern of delaying changes to the drug law as much as possible; I can only guess this is so the politicians won't have to actually make any decisions. Like the recent gay marriage situation, Parliament has known for years that there is a constitutional problem with the law, yet would rather wait for the courts to strike down the law before acting. It is notable that the new pot law does not address medical marihuana in any way; I'm guessing that is a deliberate error to ensure at least a few more years of Supreme Court trials before the politicians actually have to decide anything.
A few months ago, the Supreme Court heard a few non-medical marihuana cases, and the judgments are due soon. I'm guessing they will add additional fuel to the marihuana issue, and the government will probably be forced to pass a more liberal law than the current decriminalization bill; if only to directly address the issue of medical marihuana.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
I'd sure like to know the conditions of "victory" in the US books. Surely they're not suggesting Canada invaded the US!?
The Copyright Act 1985 c-42 Canada is available here. It's been amended a few times (latest, April 2003) but those changes have little bearing on the slashdot subject. Users with little time want to check out Part VIII, Private Copying; and in particular Section 80; Copying for Private Use.
Some comments on the discussion so far:
The Recording Industry Association of America represents US record companies. They don't now, and never have, anything to do with Canada or any other country.
The RIAA is a member of the IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide. Their website has a great link called "Anti-Piracy" and a defintion under What is Piracy? Please note the definition has not a word about dowloading, or copying a buddy's CD, but instead refers to what the RIAA tends to call Counterfeiting.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CIRA) is the body which represents the industry in Canada. They are the equivalent to the RIAA in that country and if anyone was suing anybody in Canada, they would be doing it, not the RIAA. Ever.
Uploading music is completely illegal in Canada, as is allowing it to be shared. CIRA can and probably will sue anyone who does it, and they will win. Damages, on the other hand, won't be even close to the numbers the US courts give out, which probably explains why they're not hiring a floorful of lawyers about it, so far.
What the Copyright Act allows, is the copying, for personal use, of music from any source. So, downloading is fine, as is borrowing the CD from the public library (most Canadian libraries have extensive music collections available) or a buddy, or any other source you can imagine. There are no restricitons, of any kind, on the source of the music you use to create a copy.
Steal a disk and copy it; the crime remains the theft of a $20 disk, not the copying of that "illegal" disk.
The restriction is only the person making the copy has any right to use it. You cannot lend, give away, or otherwise distribute a Personal Copy made under authorization of Section 80.
Thus, allowing your mp3s to be available to others via a shared drive or network is against the law in Canada, as is making a disk and giving it to Grandma for Christmas. Granny has to run her own burner. And moving to Canada would not protect any of those who the RIAA has sued recently; what they do is still against the law north of 49.
The US media, especially the RIAA, has done a great job of marketing their message worldwide, not just in their jurisdiction. Thus, almost every Canadian (and absolutely every journalist; lazy no check-facting idiots that they are) is completely unaware of the Act, or how it applies to copying. They all think it's illegal to burn CDs in Canada.
I think the topic has been flogged to death above, but yes, Canada autonomously entered the war. William Lyon Mackenzie King (our prime minister at the time) chose to step into it. He also talked to his dog for political advice and was convinced he was being contacted by the spirit of his long-dead mother. ... I am Canadian, by the way.
When life gives you lemons, you CLONE those lemons, and make SUPER-LEMONS. -- Dr. Cinnamon Scudworth, Ph.D
"Thanks!", indeed.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
There is an excellent on-line documentairy on the topic of drug prices in the US vs Canada.
e r/
Also, if you liked it, don't forget to send them an email. They are still undecided about whether they should put more of their documentaitries online.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oth