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CRIA Prepares To Sue P2P Copyright Violators
ergo98 writes "The Canadian version of the RIAA, the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association), has begun laying the PR groundwork for an initiative similar to that pursued by the RIAA in the US - threatening to file lawsuits against individual file sharers (specifically uploaders). They claim that CD sales have dropped by 23 per cent since 1999, attributing that drop to P2P, and apparently it isn't enough that the Canadian music industry gets a hefty presume-you-are-a-criminal levy attached on various devices and media."
Many readers also point to the Globe and Mail's version of the story. dsanfte writes "They will apparently only be targetting uploaders, because in the Copyright Board's judgement, P2P downloading is legal under Canadian law."
Without the uploaders, you will be hard pressed to find downloaders anyway.
What about this though, someone creates a virus that intentionally leaves a limited back-door into your system. This lets anyone log on, look at media files on your computer and download them.
Then you never made your files available for sharing, the downloader is liable for breaking into your computer, but it just happens that you don't want to lay any charges.
If only there was a way to get a virus onto a windows computer without people being seen to knowingly install it...
Are they hoping that they can scare me into buying music again. I used to buy cd's all the time, and i currently own over 330. But, buying cd's is simply a pain, since i lose them, they get punked and of course they collect dust on my cd rack...
MP3's on my iPod always stay nice and shiny, and follow me everywhere i go!!
Canada needs iTMS soon, because i still have a bit of cash in my budget for my favourite tunes!
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Request your free CD of my piano music.
If I wrote a program that allowed users to put a CD into their CD-ROM drive and allow other users to rip a copy of that CD over the Internet, would that be legal? It looks to me like it might be.
I'm very very tempted to write such a program. We pay the levy anyway, might as well take full advantage of it. I just don't want to loose my house, business, etc when I get sued.
When my car is stolen, when my house is broken into the police says "sorry, no resources" to catch them...
Should taxpayers really pay police, FBI, etc. for playing collection agent for the RIA?
BTW, in Russia downloading music is too expensive. Average home broadband bandwidth is around 0.1$/MB. However pirated CDs full of MP3s cost about 2$ and are on sale everywhere - flea market, regular shops (govt. doesn't give a fuck). The choice of MP3s is amazing - rarities, bootlegs, full discographies, etc....
So, USA people, welcome to Russia!
Hmm...could be a good idea for business... "Fuck RIAA, buy our exclusive 'Russia CD-Tour'.".
-- grmbl woz heer
...IF THEY GET RID OF THE LEVY
I thought the justification for the levy was to legitimise downloading mp3s? If they now want to get rid of that "service", where's the justification for the levy? Maybe they're trying to pull another scam like when CDs were new;
1980s
1. raise prices because of set-up costs
2. forget to lower after making money back
3. profit
2000s
1. raise prices because of mp3 traders
2. forget to lower after putting traders in jail
3. profit
The only way to determine if a file on an uploader's system contains copyrighted material or not is to download the file and examine it. There's no copying and therefore no copyright infringement until the file downloaded.
How does the CRIA prove copyright infringement without having been responsible for causing the infringement in the first place?
Actually it's probably more due to competition from the DVD arena. When I spend money on entertainment, it's in the form of a couple DVDs that I can pick up for 17-23 USD, a much better bang-for-my-buck than even $13.50 for CDs. And no, I don't download mp3s. My DVD collection has fast outpaced my CD collection, and I wouldn't compare DVDs to VHS, as I rarely touched that God-awful format. For Christmas I used to have people asking for CDs, but as my friends and relatives started aquiring DVD players, they also started replacing their CD requests with DVD requests.
Of course, this is all anecdotal
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
What's to stop me from setting up a kiosk on my property (or with the permission of a landowner) with a batch of CDs and a CDR. It's cheap enough to do this I might just do it to make a point. I don't think anyone would steal the physical CDs, but you could always jukebox them.
Under the current law, so long as I do not make any money, it is legal for someone to come up to this Kiosk and make all the copies they want. If this bullshit continues without the CDR levy being dropped, and my lawyer agrees with my interpretation of the law - I might just do this.
How is this any different than uploading a ripped version of the CD anyway?
..don't panic
When a business is reduced to suing customers you know you've hit a dead end. The music industry needs to issue licenses to file sharers and if they won't then we need to change the law. There is power in numbers and Click the Vote is organizing a grassroots movement to achieve just that.