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Canadian Supreme Court To Define ISP Role
Ubergrendle writes "The CBC is reporting that the Canadian Supreme Court is hearing a case regarding copyright royalties and the responsibilities of ISPs both here and abroad. From the article: 'The people who represent Canadian artists say everyone who has a hand in transmitting recorded music is liable. "Creative people should be compensated for the use and exploitation of their music," said Paul Spurgeon, general counsel for the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. "We're obviously in a struggle right now trying to figure out the best techniques to ensure that they are compensated appropriately.'" This follows on the heels of the Canadian music industry asking that this case be heard. Given the trade relations, this case should have consequences far outside of Canada proper.
That's the person who copies it, whoever writes the software that copies it (whether p2p, ftp, samba, http), the person who pays for net access, the person who owns the phoneline or cable connection, the ISP, the ISPs between ISPs, the receiving ISP, and all those people again on the receiving end.
What about the person who created the music in the first place? If it's good, then it will be copied. Should the artists also be included in the list?
Ughh brainfade day.
Wonder if they truly think about this. the RIAA and their equivalents worldwide can't all be so insanely silly and see that their distribution methods are so outdated that fewer and fewer people are using them. Could they?
I should have said: I wonder if they truly think about what's happening, and see how outdated their distribution is, and that they're going to just keep on having to spend more and more on combating their 'customers' instead of putting original thought into making product people Want to buy instead of product that people Want to copy
RST
The rest of the Spurgeon quote seems so reasonable. Why do people have to exaggerate and make things seem so dire? I know,I know. Money. To me it's just dishonest. I get tired of the fact that everyting is an con, or a sell of some sort.
If a musician is being exploited, the publisher is the most likely culprit. Somehow, this is twisted and suddenly it's the people using the internet to download files? Please.
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
Yep, because you can't get much more creative and original than Britney Spears and her fellow artists. I also notice that the words 'rewarded appropriately' were used instead of 'rewarded fairly.'
Dont forget the people who wrote the operating system, the hard drive manufacturer, the manufacturer of all cables involved in transmission (from coax to fiber to ide/ata), mainboard manufacturer, processor manufacturer, chipset manufacturer, ram manufacturer, etc.
this is stupid.
You forgot that the computers, routers and cables used to transfer the information make their way to where they are installed via the roads and automobiles. So producers of aggraget, heavy construction equipment, gasoline, cars and car parts should also be taxed. Of course we can't leave out the workers who constructed the road, the companies that produced the food that nourished them, and the farmers that grew it. To say nothing of the OPEC nations, and companies responsible for crude oil production which provides the gasoline. And of course the machine tools makers who's products produce the parts for oil drilling, exploration, and refining, the production of cars and car parts, the production and maintainence of heavy construction equipment, and of course the computers which are the source of all evil in the first place. When you really think about it, there's no reason we ever started this whole technology in the first place.
Just the thought of 6 billion naked people shivering in the woods singing "cum by ya" is so warm in fuzzy I bet actually doing it would all but prevent hypothermia.
I, for one, welcome our new socialist luddite hating revolutionaries to the north.
I AM CANADIAN and I and so f@#$'n tired of these poor starving artists who claim to be suffering so much because people are downloading and/or sharing their music...PLEASE get over yourselves
I have a hard time believing that all but the very best... maybe 10% of Canadian artists are being traded, even moderately.
And this tax the ISP for others is truly Canadian and just as f@#$'n stupid.
Canadians pay more taxes to "protect" Canadian businesses that peddled in international television signals, music distribution and now possibly internet access... talk about a racket!
Whenever I hear these statements, I'm wondering how much of that is "someone rights are not infringed" and how much is "someones business model must be protected".
There is no god-given right to make a living off whatever you choose to be your profession. Circumstances can change, and your business model can become unviable. Facts of life 101. Everybody has to deal with that (cf. type-setters, weavers, ...). Thus any argument similar "those poor XXX, YYY destroys their income, thus YYY must be banned" is IMHO just wrong.
The correct approach is to look whether somebody need legal help to ascertain his right to the fruits of his labor. That he's not wronged in the legal sense of the word. Whether his income would be enough to sustain his life is not the court's business.
If the state decides that it really wants a certain tradecraft to be a viable business, then that's a purely political question (cf. farm subsidies, military spending, art funding) and should not be decided by a court of law.
The people who represent Canadian artists say everyone who has a hand in transmitting recorded music is liable.
Taken to another level, in this case, that's like saying that everyone who has a hand in building a road should be liable for car bombings... So should auto manufacturers, and the different levels of state that own the roads... Sorry, that doesn't fly with me...
This is the same supreme court that ruled that Canadians can't get American satellite signals even when willing to pay for them. We are forced to only view Canadian content even when we are willing to go to extremes and set up an american PO box and pay american dollars. This is not a resonably thinking court. Don't think for a second that the right thing will be done here. I wouldn't be surprised if they came down with a ruling that decided that Candaians couldn't download any foreign music and if they did you must pay a levy. They will make a ruling that has no way of being enforced and spend millions trying to enforce it. Rational thinking has nothing to do with it!!!!
Stay tuned for new sig...
Here in Canada we put a relatively large focus on supporting Canadian artists, and culture and media in general. Some of our taxes and levies(like on CD-Rs) help fund arts groups and artists, and this is somewhat in that line, I feel.
Even our big media group, the CBC, recieves government funding. I for one I'm glad for it. Sure, it's socialism. But it's just a touch. And when I dial in the CBC Two late at night there's always the most interesting music on. We pay a bit more in taxes and get a lot back in continuingly interesting art. I think that's a good thing.
First of all, the blank media levy is not 'compensating' artists - to this date, not one cent of the levy has been given to record labels, let alone artists. And if/when the money does get handed down to the music companies, what makes anyone think that they will actually pass it along to the artists? It's been awhile since I saw a record contract, but that's never been a line item - it's not a unit sale, so the artists won't see a dime.
Second of all, should this go into effect, why should music companies be compensated, when this affects everyone who makes/produces anything that could be traded? Will there be a separate levy for software companies? Book publishers? Movie studios? Or will these other industries be given part of the existing levy? (You can bet not - like the blank media levy, any law will probably specify music companies only.)
This is so fundamentally flawed it's unbelieveable.
The onus on the Recording Association to prove that the main purpose of the ISP's is to facilitate illegal downloading of music is simply too broad to be logically proven. Most sane people (which I'd hope a Supreme Court judge would be) would conclude that since the music association is already being recompensed they have no legal need to demand this additional tax, if they want a cut of the CDR tax they (the artists) should talk to the industry association (the Canadian version of the RIAA). I believe this has already happened and they were rebuffed in the backroom, thusly they felt this is the only alternative and they needed a new tax.
Just another piece of fluff news ment to try getting people up in arms.
Copyright Law takes its origin in the will to protect the revenues of authors / musicians / other artists, so that they have an incentive to create. Right ?
Originally it protected the real authors from the misappropriation by others and ill-profiting from their works. Right ? This particular intent was first turned into a travesty when the middle-men started buying these rights from the authors to enforce it themselves. It even agravated when they launched the infamous "Work for hire" type contracts, where the author is totally deprived of authorship.
Now it goes even further: they are expanding the travestied concept (based on an unnatural compromise between public domain and a need for incentives to create, originally) of copyright to leverage more and more control and extort more money from each side of the industry ?
And, pray-tell, what will happen when the Associated Agents rule almighty on culture and distribution of information, and collect the Tax on Everything Digital ? All this in the name of a parody of an already flimsy concept of "copyright". Sheesh.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Quotes like this "Creative people should be compensated for the use and exploitation of their music" irk me so. Replace music with the word software and I'm more likely to see why authors should get compensated, but oddly it's the music industry that is protected wholeheartedly by the law. In the software industry, if someone pirates your software, it generally is an exact duplicate of the purchaseable item (minus the copy-right protection and adding in some advertising). In the music industry, if someone distributes a lossy version of your song (for the most part, it's the labels song) or recorded off the radio (difference between this and taping shows on your VCR and sending it to others is what?) you have to pay - and not only pay for the indiscretion, but also for the potential indiscretion thanks to CD-r levies.
Where is the equality in that? Why is the music industry so favoured? You haven't seen ISP's fined for the transferral of illegal software; up until two years ago, my ISP used to have a mirror of alt.binaries.warez among its other newsgroups!
For that matter, what constitutes use? How much of the file must be copied to be considered an illegal use? Almost all OS's will copy a file and then delete it to safely move a file from one partition to another - does this situation insinuate 2 copyright violations?
Most of these cases seem to be that of "guilt without evidence". A filename does not an illegal download make, nor a hash value a confirmation.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Yes but look at subsection 2 in Section 80 :
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following in relation to any of the things referred to in paragraphs (1)(a) to (c):
(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
Specifically I suspect (b) limits copying anything over the net (i.e Kazaa, torrent, etc) and would be considered unlawful?
Not sure please enlighten me otherwise.
ITANAL (I Too Am Not A Lawyer)