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Canadian Music Industry Wants Royalties on Net Usage
Dr. Zoidburg writes "Apparently Internet music and movie sharing in Canada has gained enough popularity to turn the heads of the music and movie industry. CTV has a report about a Canadian organization named SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada) that will "ask the Supreme Court of Canada next week to force Internet service providers to pay them royalties for the millions of digital music files downloaded each year by Canadians". Says the president of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, "Consumers could very well see an increase in their Internet costs and they could see a slowdown in the transmission speed of their Internet communications"."
We already pay $0.25 per cd-r, "they" want to increase it to around $0.59. As an example, that would increase the take by the music industry of a 30 pack of cd-r's to $17.70, from $7.50, an increase of $10.20. I for one find it offensive that the recording industry is charging me for the right to back up my own, non-musical data, and I doubt that any of the levies collected are rightfully distributed to pornstars that most /. readers have stored in the way of movies on cd-r's. Large per GB levies have also been proposed for portable players, and if I recall correctly, if implemented, the levy on an iPod would be around $200.
There has been a lot of opposition to the proposed $0.59 levy lately, spearheaded by large retailers, so the music industry has turned elsewhere, and that is to ISP's.
The movie/music industry corrupt out young with popularised violence.
/end 2cents + RIAA tax
Corrupt our young by popularising youth sexuality.
Corrupt our government with taxes on their so called *illegal* copied/downloaded files.
Corrupt our laws with legal exemptions in computer tresspassing(ie riaa wants to break into your computer if they *think* you have their music).
Have laws written that exempt them from litigation and otherwise.
For sure its obvious that those with the technical interllect of 2 year olds are making IT/IP laws.
*My question is, how far down the slippery slope are we?*
Although i used to believe that systems fail because they cannot adjust to a changing world, but now IMHO I have also become to believe that regardless of a system, people will fail to pay attention to detail and thus derail any system after some time and I do feel that is what is happening in many first world legal systems.
Since the only difference between us and those who are starving is our accumulated technology, why is that those with knowledge in technology pay no attention to politics. To have a right to wealth, one must also have a responsibility but I see no responsibility anywhere
ABCD
ABSOLUTELY.
I would have NO PROBLEM AT ALL if royalties for music went DIRECTLY to the artist involved, and not through the record label, managers, agents, etc.
Whatcha wanna bet that SOCAN would drop the idea in a split-second if they were unable to fill their own pockets with cash.
Quite a wonderful scam they have going here:
-Private Organization, doesn't have to release their books, profit information, membership list, etc.
-Never has given out ANY of the MILLIONS of dollars they've collected in the "name of the artists".
-No public accountability.
-Their income is enforced by the Canadian Government by way of levies - guaranteed cash flow!
If only every business could be so lucky.
It's time for the Government to dissolve the levies on this sad, sad excuse for ripping off Canadian consumers.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
In canada, there's already a levy on blank CDRs which goes to the music industry...
Bran Van3000
I Mother Earth
Crash Test Dummies
Delerium
Esthero
Frontline Assembly
Bif Naked
Skinny Puppy
Neil Young
Plastikman
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
SOCAN is a performing rights agency. It is the Canadian equivalent of BMI and ASCAP in the United States. These organizations collect money for the composers and publishers of music. They do not collect money for the recording artists. (Note that the composers and publishers are often different from the recording artists.) And they're not an industry lobby group like the RIAA.
Eric
No. A judge found that if *I* borrowed a music cd from a friend and *I* ripped/burnt a copy of that music cd for *myself*, then that is perfectly legal. If a friend made a copy of his music cd and gave that copy to me, that is illegal. Downloading is not considered legal. Uploading is a definite no-no. I would like to understand why I should pay a surcharge to compensate someone else for an activity that I do NOT participate in. If suddenly I get hit with surcharges and I'm not p2p file sharing, my assumption is that music/video downloading from Kazaa or wherever is perfectly legal and I may participate in such activities to my heart's content.
>And no, there is no actual difference between the 2 types of CD-R, just how much you pay.
Wrong, buddy. There *is* a difference. There's audio units that can record audio CDs, however these units will only accept *music* CD-Rs.
I've been told the music CD-Rs have something pre-written on them that those units look for when trying to write on the CD.
After all, if there wasn't any difference, why would people pay almost 10$ for 5 music CD-Rs when they can get 50 data CD-Rs for about 40$ (let's stay with the prices of good CD-Rs such as Fuji, for the sake of the argument)
So thanks for your input, thanks for trying to help and all, but please quit now before you really fuck the facts for the others!
The levy is the main reason why I purchased a MP3 player with internal hard drive now rather than wait for perhaps a newer model with more features, etc. - for an MP3 player with a 20 gig hard drive it will cost an additional $420 - hardly an "invisible" amount. Maybe they would even put the levy on internal cache memory on the player?
2 -b.pdf for a pdf with legal details. For less formal info and background just Google.
For the official information on the levy people can go to http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/tariffs/proposed/c0903200
Did not see anyone posting this - perhaps people don't know the rates proposed. Here they are:
(a) 60 for each audio cassette of 40 minutes or more in length;
(b) 59 for each CD-R, CD-RW or each unit of any other type of recordable or rewritable compact disc of 100 megabytes or more of storage capacity;
(c) $1.23 for each CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio or MiniDisc;
(d) 0.8 for each megabyte of memory in each removable electronic memory card, each removable flash memory storage medium of any type, or each removable micro-hard drive;
(e) $2.27 for each DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM or each unit of any other type of recordable or rewritable DVD;
(f) 2.1 for each megabyte of memory in each non-removable electronic memory card or each non-removable flash memory storage medium of any type incorporated into each MP3 player or into each similar device with internal electronic or flash
memory that is intended for use primarily to record and play music;
(g) $21 for each gigabyte of memory in each non-removable hard drive incorporated into each MP3 player or into each similar device with an internal hard drive that is intended for use primarily to record and play music
Plus, the major ISP (Bell) actually has to get *permission* from the CRTC to raise rates. Let me tell you, they're not about to give money to *anyone*.
It will be interesting to watch though...
This fear of lawsuits is so strong that many corporations won't even challenge a false copyright. Have you picked up a copy of Shakespeare and looked at the backside of the title page? What's there but a (c) declaration by the publisher. On what? They clearly have a coyright on the modern introduction but not on the plays and sonnets. Brooklyn Law School published an article about this disturbing trend entitled "False Copyrights" about publishers that claim copyright on public domain works. The fear of lawsuits (or aversion to paying to lititage) has driven many universities and publishers to begin denying fair-use rights of students, faculty and authors. In many cases universities are agreeing to royalty licenses when fair use would allow them to use the materials. Publishers are requiring authors to get explicit written permission to quote the works of other authors when fair use would grant them a priori permission.
I don't really have a problem with churches and schools paying standard tarrifs on copyright songs (we make them buy text books) but I absolutely draw the line at chilling fair use through fear of litigation and will not stand for publishers that claim copyright on public domain works.
Bryan Adams, Age Of Electric,Barenaked Ladies (!!!), Biff Naked, Blue Rodeo, Bran Van 3000, Tom Cochrane,Bruce Cockburn, Leonard Cohen, Cowboy Junkies, Deborah Cox, Crash Test Dummies, Delerium, Edwin, 54-40, Finger Eleven, Gob, Great Big Sea, Guess Who, Headstones, I Mother Earth, Diana Krall, Chantal Kreviazuk, LEN, Gordon Lightfoot, Lighthouse, Love Inc., Ashley MacIsaac, Sarah McLachlan, Holly McNarland, Joni Mitchell, Our Lady Peace, Alanis Morissette, Moist, Philosopher Kings, Sky, Sloan, Tragically Hip, treble charger,Shania Twain, David Usher, Wide Mouth Mason, Neil Young, to name a few