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."

Comments

Three words for Canadian CD-R/RW buyers

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Class. Action. Lawsuit.

Re:Three words for Canadian CD-R/RW buyers

[RalphBNumbers]

Why just the buyers? Hardware sellers are getting screwed here two.

Levy -> higher prices for consumers -> less sales -> less profits

Re:Three words for Canadian CD-R/RW buyers

[ADOT Troll]

For every downloader, there must be an uploader. Someone made the data being downloaded available for access. Someone set up the machine that hosts said data. Someone arranged for a network connection to be set up for that machine. Someone controls the machine that is sending the data stream, and that person, or people, would likely be considered the uploader in any legal situation. It's a dinky distinction, but I've heard about the gaping loophole in Canadian law that allows this to take place. I'm tempted to investigate the legalese myself just to see if that loophole really does exist.

That said, CRIA is a bunch of money-grubbing goons, the exact equivalent of the RIAA. I haven't bought a CD in years, due to my own personal lack of disposable income available for frills like CDs, but even saying that there are very few new discs I would purchase, and not many old discs I have the time and money to hunt down. I have some news for CRIA--the economy's sucked as of late, one of the largest markets is still crawling out of a very bad summer (did you idiots forget SARSstock???), and music that gets radio play has become, for the most part, so derivative it hurts to listen. Thank goodness for community radio and bars with live music.

Re:Three words for Canadian CD-R/RW buyers

[Zork the Almighty]

Who are you going to sue ? The government ? For making a law you don't like ?

Re:Three words for Canadian CD-R/RW buyers

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

I'm not Canadian, but it seems to me the CRIA gave up any right to complain about citizens sharing music amongst themselves when they got their levy on media.

Re:Three words for Canadian CD-R/RW buyers

[Canadian_Daemon]

For every downloader, there must be an uploader.
but that uploader doesnt necessarily have to be canadian.

Re:Three words for Canadian CD-R/RW buyers

[beakerMeep]

Who are you going to sue ? The government ? For making a law you don't like ?

Right. Because that's SO UNHEARD OF.

Re:Three words for Canadian CD-R/RW buyers

[Goldberg's Pants]

All the uploaders can be in countries that can turn round and say "FUCK OFF" to the recording industry, and me, sitting in Canada, can legally leech the shit out of it all and be perfectly safe.

I am disgusted at the levy I have to pay on blank CD's, especially when I do home movies for my Dad of his grandson, and pay the fuckers in the recording industry money to be able to do it, but at least the government had the balls to say "Fine, in that case, downloading is legal". In fact that almost makes the levy worthwhile for the comedy it has provided seeing this happen.

And if you want to avoid the new levy on MP3 players, just buy off of Ebay like I just did. Paid less than half price for a Panasonic MP3/CD player.

Re:Three words for Canadian CD-R/RW buyers

[Goldberg's Pants]

I have no idea exactly what changed with the new ruling, but I know the Canadian ruling was like this.

You have an album, a friend wants it, you copy it for him. That's illegal.

You have an album, a friend wants it, you loan it to them, they copy it. That's legal.

In short, loan someone a CD, they can legally copy it here.

The drop in sales is more likely down to the amount of people boycotting the thieving shits in the industry (Not bought an album since early 2000 myself), and the general decline in quality of releases. I mean when we have shit like American Idol, Canadian Idol etc... Is it any wonder nobody buys the CD's anymore... It's for one very simply reason.

It's all mass produced, carbon copy shit.

Re:Three words for Canadian CD-R/RW buyers

[Dashing Leech]

Actually, downloading copyrighted material without permission *isn't* legal in Canada.

As always, RTFA, or here (from a previous Slashdot story), or Canadian Copyright Law.

Indeed, it appears to be legal to download copyrighted songs in Canada, even according to copyright experts and internet law experts. It hasn't been tested in court yet, but it seems prosecutors believe it is legal too so they won't prosecute.

But as the article states, uploading (broadcasting) is clearly illegal. So as long as we Canadians just leech, we're fine (legally speaking).

yes....

[xao gypsie]

....because cd sales drops have nothing to do with things like slow economies, declining quality in music, overpriced cds.....

xao

Re:yes....

[Anonymous Coward]

jobs are the last to come back.

the people still out of work, remind the ones that are still working that "we ain't out of the woods"

and while consumer spending _is_ up, buyers are very fickle right now. and with the riaa doing a nice job of making nice with the general public, don't be surprised when they've effectively stopped p2p, and people STILL AREN'T buying their tripe.

if it takes the destruction of the music industry, before we get a new paradigm,

so be it.

a lot of ppl better start learning how to bus tables.

Re:yes....

[mini me]

The problem is the radio. They play the same songs so often that there is no need to buy the CD.

I remember years ago, you'd be hard pressed to catch even the hits you want to hear. Now turn on the radio and there it is, right for your listening pleasure. So why would I bother buying the CD? Why even bother downloading it?

Re:yes....

[shark72]

"....because cd sales drops have nothing to do with things like slow economies, declining quality in music, overpriced cds....."

Music quality is a constant; the good-stuff-to-crap ratio is about the same today as it was ten or twenty or thirty years ago. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be: we tend to think of the 1970's as the decade of Dark Side of the Moon or The Long Run or (insert your favorite classic 70's album here), but there was a LOT of crap back then, too. We've just pushed it out of our memory. The recent huge drop in CD sales can't easily be attributed to music quality, as it's a constant.

Music pricing is another constant. In fact, in the USA, it's gone down a bit. The average price of a CD is down to $13.50 in the US. In 1984, $9.99 was considered a decent price for an LP. That would be $17.30 in 2002 dollars. So, again, the recent huge drop in CD sales can't be attributed to pricing alone, as it's a constant.

This leaves the economy. In one way the economy is definitely a big cause, as an unemployed person may be more liable to resort to pirating music than the same person would if they still had a job. But it's tough to blame the drop in CD sales entirely on the economy, for a couple of reasons: other forms of entertainment (including those that aren't piratable) haven't dropped nearly as much, and while the economy has had its ups and downs over the past several decades, this drop in CD sales is unprecedented.

Claiming that the utter explosion in music piracy over the past few years has absolutely no effect on CD sales is a phenomenon that I call "ignoring the elephant" -- that is, the two-ton elephant in the room wearing a shirt labelled "music piracy." The drop in sales is likely due to many factors, piracy being one of them, but this is a complex issue not easily solved by simple bromides like "it's the economy."

And, of course, economy or not, if the Canadian record companies think that piracy is part of the problem, it's their prerogative to do something about it. Sure, lowering CD prices, working with legitimate download sites, and education are key as well, but sometimes you've just got to kick some ass.

Re:yes....

[CrowScape]

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

Re:yes....

[MikeXpop]

We tend to think of the 1970's as the decade of Dark Side of the Moon or The Long Run or (insert your favorite classic 70's album here), but there was a LOT of crap back then, too. We've just pushed it out of our memory. The recent huge drop in CD sales can't easily be attributed to music quality, as it's a constant.

Ha! I laugh at you. The 70's did have a lot of crap, yes. But it also had more gold than Fort Knox. DSotM, London Calling, The Clash, Nevermind the Bullocks, Wish You Were Here, The Wall, Meddle, [Insert Led Zeppelin album here]. We have nothing like that now. Now it's both crap (Pop-drivel Green Day, Good Charlotte, Backstreet Boys) or just plain "good" (Radiohead, Tool). We have no exceptional bands. At least none that are being pimped by the RIAA.

Disguise it all you want, music has declined.

(Ready for the real shocker? I'm 16.)

Re:yes....

[dadragon]

Because most of the time there's one good song per CD of 10-20 tracks. One song is not worth $15, so people download it.

Re:yes....

[mini me]

Impossible. They play it so often that by the time they quit playing it, you never want to hear it again.

Re:yes....

[Saeger]

The complete laundry list of reasons why CD sales are dropping...

1. People want online convenience, either from free p2p, or cheap iTunes, or other.
2. People are conditioned to view p2p AS FREE LIKE RADIO, and think nothing of it - it's an advertisement for a concert and merchandise.
3. A down economy.
4. DVDs and Video Games are a much better value!
5. People are done replacing their old LP/cassette collections.
6. Quality of music has dropped thanks to the soulsucking megacorp cookiecutter and "independent" clearchannel promoters.
7. Used CDs are easier to trade through ebay and the like.
8. Independent artists are more accessible now.
9. People are actively sticking it to the RIAA because they know how badly the artists are getting screwed.
10. 192 people are protesting perpetual copyrights...
11. ...unf.

Assign weights to each as you deem fit.

--

Re:yes....

[zephyr1256]

but there was a LOT of crap back then, too. We've just pushed it out of our memory. The recent huge drop in CD sales can't easily be attributed to music quality, as it's a constant.

While you have a point, I think you are unjustified in claiming that music quality is actually constant. First, music quality is a subjective factor. Those who think music quality has declined in recent years are correct, though, and no doubt it means they buy less new music. Some others may like new stuff, but even saying that the subjective quality of music 'evens out' or something is little more than a handwaving argument.

Music pricing is another constant. In fact, in the USA, it's gone down a bit. The average price of a CD is down to $13.50 in the US. In 1984, $9.99 was considered a decent price for an LP. That would be $17.30 in 2002 dollars. So, again, the recent huge drop in CD sales can't be attributed to pricing alone, as it's a constant.

But what you ignore is that the value of having a pressed CD has gone down in value to the customer. Even if actual prices have remained relatively constant, that does not the market equilibrium price for CDs stayed the same. Costs of production went down to the point that individuals can burn their own, and digital technology provides alternatives that further devalue the price that the market will bear. Market forces do not acknowledge copyright law or judge decisions. The Recording Industry wants to have their cake and eat it too, using the law to strongarm their customers into paying prices way above market price and keep high profit margins. The end result is inevitably a reduction in sales, primarily because prices are kept too high. Piracy(filesharing in this context) is a side effect of keeping these prices so high, not a cause of a reduction in sales.

But it's tough to blame the drop in CD sales entirely on the economy, for a couple of reasons: other forms of entertainment (including those that aren't piratable) haven't dropped nearly as much, and while the economy has had its ups and downs over the past several decades, this drop in CD sales is unprecedented.

You can't blame it entirely on the economy, but that doesn't mean the remainder must be mainly(or even significantly) due to piracy. Comparisons to other forms of entertainment only goes so far; other forms that haven't seen such drops most certainly have maintained prices more in tune with what the market will bear. Still, I would submit that the economy is a major factor, and moreso when combined with unreasonable expectations of the Industry about what their profit margins 'should' be.

Claiming that the utter explosion in music piracy over the past few years has absolutely no effect on CD sales is a phenomenon that I call "ignoring the elephant" -- that is, the two-ton elephant in the room wearing a shirt labelled "music piracy."

I don't think that is claimed by many people. What is, quite reasonably, claimed is that music piracy has no or little net effect on music sales. Let me explain: its true that people can obtain copies of songs for free and thereby get out of buying something; in some cases they might have bought an album, in other cases not. But there is another phenomenon associated with filesharing, and that is of people being exposed to new music that they would not have discovered otherwise, and as a result of that, going out and buying more CDs. A side benefit is that the customer knows what they are getting as well, so this is more total benefit. I can attest that this was the case with myself and most of my friends back in the days of Napster; I bought many more CDs than I did at any previous period in my life, or since then for that matter. The point here is, there are two elements(at least) that determine whether filesharing helps or hurts sales, the negative element due to people not buying when they otherwise would have and the postitive element of people buying when they otherwise wouldn't

Re:yes....

[thales]

You are missing one thing that isn't a constant, yhe number of titles released. As the RIAA members merge into larger and larger companies they are releasing fewer and fewer titles each year.

A CD that isn't released will sell ZERO copies

The RIAA is pushing formula music and not releasing as many titles, and it's the bands that haven't made it big that are getting hit the hardest. Some of these bands could have been this years big run away hit, but they never got recorded because they didn't have the formula sound the RIAA is looking for.

Re:yes....

[aardvarkjoe]

(Ready for the real shocker? I'm 16.)

In other words, you're looking at it with three decades of space in between, and probably have never heard the vast majority of the music from that time period, which -- like always -- was crap.

Don't mistake your preference for certain music for being evidence of that music's quality. Do you listen to classical music? Jazz? Gregorian chants? If not, do you deny that there is quality to be found among them?

There are some talented musicians today. Yes, even ones under the big-name labels. Sure, most of today's music is crap, but that's certainly not a change from twenty years ago, fifty years ago, or five hundred years ago.

Re:yes....

[Goldberg's Pants]

DVD probably IS a big part of the problem. I mean you can get most new releases for less than $10 more than a regular CD, and as you say, it provides more bang for your buck.

I mean really, if someone said "You can have two albums, or one DVD for Christmas" I'd probably have said "DVD" before they'd even finished the sentence.

If I want music, I can turn on the radio, I can turn on any number of streaming stations on the net... I don't have to BUY anything to get noise in my living room. If I want to experience a movie, DVD is the only way to go.

Re:yes....

[Goldberg's Pants]

I'm 32. I grew up during disco. It hurts me as I mostly HATE disco. However, there's a great deal of 70's music that kicks ass. Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd etc... I still listen to The Wall now, over 20 years after it was released. I can't think of ANYTHING released these days that people will be listening to in five years, let alone twenty.

The reason? Image. Back in the 70's it was about the music. It didn't matter if the singer had 3 eyes and no nose, and looked like a melted mouse mat, so long as he could sing. (Christ, look at the Floyd guys, hardly photogenic...) These days, if you don't have the looks, you don't get your video anywhere, you don't get the promotion... Basically the whole industry has become style over substance, hence we'll never see classics like "The Wall" again.

You only need to take a look at American Idol, Canadian Idol, Pop Idol etc... To see why the music industry is totally fucked and why nobody is buying anything.

Re:yes....

[3terrabyte]

Yep, lots of interviews with teenagers show that DVD's seem to be a better entertainment dollar. Plus they're new. The sales of DVD players are still going up. So that means more and more people getting DVD's now. Also, people have already replaced their tapes & vinyl, so CD's are no longer 'new'. People are still replacing their VHS.

The computer game market is still going up, up, up, also, so there are at least 2 different entertainment genres in direct competition with music. There is only so much money for a consumer's disposable entertainment cash. Why the Music Industry thinks it's their god given right to make money in a recession is beyond me.

Hmm...

[EvilSporkMan]

So if you can download in Canada and you can download in the U.S., why don't the Canadians share American music for the U.S.ers and vice versa? Surely that wouldn't be too hard to rig up, if only by agreement...

Re:Hmm...

[Geek of Tech]

>> Pretty much all pop distributed in the states is distributed here too.

I'm sorry. I didn't know you had it that bad up there.

Re:Hmm...

[RobinH]

>> Pretty much all pop distributed in the states is distributed here too.

I'm sorry. I didn't know you had it that bad up there.

It's gotten better since you took Celine Dion off our hands... can't thank you enough for that one!

That's it, I'm moving to Canada!

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, wait, they are doing something I *don't* like this time? That's hardly fair.

Re:That's it, I'm moving to Canada!

[Seek_1]

Well you could just come to Canada and be a leech. That's still perfectly legal.

it makes little difference

[toddhunter]

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...

Re:it makes little difference

[gl4ss]

..actually you can already claim that with kazaa.

there's some progs that install on your computer without your consent that always turn the uploading on(i don't remember how exactly these programs spread, but iirc it was a bug in kazaa itself, which may or may not be close. also i suspect that people would leave such backdoored .exes on as well causing it.).

Re:it makes little difference

[slash-tard]

Well a back door is essentially the same thing.

But.. how can half of a 2 way process be illegal? It seems to me this is similiar to it being legal to buy something but illegal for someone to sell it to you. Im probably missing an obvious example of this but I cant think of any now.

I think lawyers do stuff like this on purpose to increase the demand for themselves.

Re:it makes little difference

[MouseR]

But.. how can half of a 2 way process be illegal?

Jurisprudence.

There's no way, unless videotaped or via some sort of audio record of your wrongdoings, to prove that you intentionally and wilfully acquired something illegal.

It is, however, your responsibility to ascertain that acquired merchandise is owned by the provider.

However, due to the previous item, you can not be liable for acquiring a product that was wrongfully acquired by the provider.

An example of this is buying a packaged CD or a pair of jeans at a flea market. You're buying it in good faith (aka, exchanging money for it) from a reseller wich assures your it's original, top-quality stuff.

Said CD might very well be a cheap duplicate (often the case) or contraband (counterfeited) brand pair of jeans.

The buyer can't be held responsible, but the seller is responsible for having resold something that was not legal.

If caught, the buyer would have to hand over the bought merchandise (usually to serve as evidence, then destroyed) and the seller would face criminal charges.

If, however, the buyer actually resells the stuff, he becomes as guilty as the original seller, for it is his duty to make sure, before reselling, that the merchandise was genuine.

This same process applies to P2P music.

The down-loader can not be held responsible for downloading an illegal song file wich he acquired from an up-loader. Said up-loader must make sure, before uploading the song, that he has the rights to do so. The down-loader can't be held responsible if the up-loader didn't have the rights, because he's not in a position to know (I mean, legally... but we all know that's crock).

live with dust or 'on the edge' !!

[velkr0]

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!

Quick Primer

[SirSlud]

In Canada, it is legal to borrow content (a CD, movie, etc) from a friend (or stranger), and copy it for your own personal use.

It is not legal to MAKE copies of content you own, and distribute it to friends (or strangers).

This is why downloading is legal (you're 'borrowing' a copy, and copying it), but uploading is illegal (you're copying what you presumably own, and distributing it.)

We pay additional taxes on media to support this system. I think its just gone up again, with MP3 players now being taxed as they represent blank media on which you might copy somebody else's content.

This is my udnerstanding of our system. Corrections are invited.

Re:Quick Primer

[debrain]

We pay additional taxes on media to support this system. I think its just gone up again, with MP3 players now being taxed as they represent blank media on which you might copy somebody else's content.

The levy price did not go up; the actual prices stayed the same. You can read about it here

MP3 player's are now being taxed, which is new. The gist of the protection is that you may fundamentally circumvent copyright if you give away the original, and you are permitted to keep copies, from my understanding. So you may make a copy of a CD, keep the copy, and give away the original CD, and not have violated the rights of the copyright holder.

The essence of this, distinguished from "real" copyright violations, is that you can only give away the original once, and so you cannot mass produce the effect of that lost copyright. Or so my understanding goes ...

Re:Quick Primer

[atommoore]

I believe you interpreted the ruling perfectly.

"On March 19, 1998, Part VIII of the (Canadian) 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."

-- Copyright Board of Canada: Fact Sheet: Private Copying 1999-2000 Decision

Seems like sealand will be the one place to upload anything sooner or later.

Stay out of trouble by downloading legal music

[MichaelCrawford]

From Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads:

You don't need to worry about getting sued by the Recording Industry Assocation of America or arrested by the FBI if you download legal music. Many independent and unsigned musicians offer downloads of their music in hopes of attracting more fans. Here's some music from my friends The Divine Maggees, Oliver Brown and Rick Walker's Loop.pooL.

If everyone started downloading legal music instead of violating copyright with the file sharing programs, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs directly from the artists and seeing their shows instead of enriching the major labels by buying CDs from the bands the labels have chosen for us to listen to. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads do not infringe copyright because the artists give you permission to download them.

Besides giving you lots of links to legal downloads, the article goes on to discuss how you can change the law to make p2p filesharing of proprietary files legal. I think that could happen if I could get all sixty million US file traders to read the article in time for the November 2004 elections. So far the article is getting read by about 500 people a day, but it needs to be read a couple of orders of magnitude more often between now and November if it's going to effect the election. Please read What You Can Do To Help.

Please copy and distribute this article. It has a Creative Commons license.

its ok

[the_2nd_coming]

The Canadian Supreme Court will make up some law that does not exist so that the CRIA can get paid.

A new legal P2P Music Sharing system for Canada?

[Vic Metcalfe]

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.

Should taxpayers pay for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Should taxpayers pay for this?

[cfuse]

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?

Ha! You only voted to get your preferred political candidate into office. They paid. Guess who gets the silver service.

Recording Industry vs. World - round 2. Ready, ste

[grmb1]

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'.".

Fair enough...

[rokzy]

...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

Re:Fair enough...

[rokzy]

I'm fine with copyright and them enforcing it. it's the levy that I disagree with. but it at least made sense under the assumption that people are free to download songs. although people are still legally allowed to download them, downloading is dependent upon there being someone uploading them, which is now being attacked.

now that they are active pursuing uploaders, demanding a levy seems even more ridiculous than before. imagine that they are successful and no one uploads any more and downloads stop, how can the levy be justified?

it would be like the government deciding that they should collect tax on sales of drugs while simultaneously prosecting the people selling the drugs.

you can't have your cake and eat it.

Re:Difficulty

[psychogentoo]

They don't have to prove anything. You get sued, then they ask if you want to settle out of court or go through a lengthy trial process.

Its a lose-lose situation for the parties involved except for the lawyers and Celine Dion.

Wait a damn minute....

[TheWhaleShark]

So...*I* can't copy MY media that *I* legally purchased, but I CAN copy YOUR media that *I* did NOT legally purchase?

My head hurts just thinking about that.

Another wonderful idea.

[rice_burners_suck]

Hey, let's sue our fans!! What shall we do next?! Hey, I have another great idea: Every time someone buys blank CD media, they are immediately arrested and imprisoned for a period not less than 20 years in a maximum security prison for each blank CD, alongside murderers and rapists, whose crimes are certainly lesser than that of music piracy. After the 20 year per blank CD period, the person is released from prison and allowed to take their blank CD(s).

This law would ignore the fact that blank CDs are used for mostly legitimate reasons, because piracy, being worse than murder or rape, should be handled under a no-fucking-around policy. And all books should be burned. And all people whose skin is not within 0.0000000000001% tolerance of a specific shade should be hung.

Subpeonas

[Anonymous Coward]

They won't be able to go after as many file swappers (per capita) as they have in the U.S. because Canadian law does not allow you to subpeona their ISPs without a warrant signed by a judge. We have no DMCA yet. Also, there is also no legal precedent a la RIAA vs Verizon to get the names of file swappers from ISPs.

How does the Canadian RIAA plan to track down these uploaders without names, addresses and phone numbers from ISPs?

Of course, once we sign on to the FTAA, we will be forced to ratify it and adopt the insane IP provisions of that "free trade" agreement, including jail terms for file swappers, making open source software outright illegal, and allowing corporations to copyright everything except 12 distinct processes (ex calendars). I'm really looking forward to the human genome being copyrighted and having to pay licensing fees for my very existance.

I can't believe it! I'm *actually* planning on voting NDP in the next federal election, despite the fact that I'm a small "c" conservative. That would have been unthinkable for me as recently as two years ago. This fact that our government is whoreing us to virtually criminal organizations like the RIAA/MPAA and Microsoft makes me sick to my stomach.

Entrapment?

[NonaMyous]

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?

simple answers

[dirk]

Everyone seems to be asking the wrong questions. The questions have nothing to do with if P2P copying helps or hurts music. The simple question is "Do these people have a legal right to distribute this music?" And the simple answer is "no". Just because you own a copy of something in no way gives you the right to distribute copies of it to other people. Owning a book doesn't give you the right to make copies of it and hand it out on the street. Owning a photograph (that someone else took) doesn't give you the right to make copies and hand them out. Owning a copy of Linux doesn't give you the right to distribute binary only copies of it. Owning a CD doesn't give you the right to distribute MP3 copies of the music. IT doesn't matter whether it helps or hurts CD sales, the fact is you have no right to do it. People have the right (and should have the right) to decide what happens to the things they create. IF you want to distribute music via P2P, feel free to create some and distribute it. You have every right to decide what happens with the music you make. Just as other people have the right to decide they don't want you giving away their music for free over P2P.

Re:simple answers

[NSash]

The simple question is "Do these people have a legal right to distribute this music?" And the simple answer is "no". Just because you own a copy of something in no way gives you the right to distribute copies of it to other people.

You would have been correct if you had just said "Does the legal system currently permit you to distribute this music?" Of course, that would also be completely empty. The law should be what is right; something doesn't become right by being law. The legal system is very fluid, with laws being created, revised, re-interpreted, and stricken down continuously. It makes no sense to treat the current state of the law as something sacred.

I further object to your use of the word "right" because it implies that somehow, copyright restrictions are natural. They aren't. If I see someone execute a clever combination in a 2D fighter game, and I then use that same stratagem on him, he might well complain that I was copying him. Indeed, he had thought of it first... and my response would be, "tough." Laws restricting the ability to copy techniques, text, or items are completely artificial. The very ideas of copyright and patents have only existed for a few hundred years. This is not to say they are bad: patents, copyright laws, and trademark protection all exist for very good reason. But to imply that they are somehow natural, that such laws are as inevitable as laws prohibiting theft and murder, is ridiculous.

Re:simple answers

[Saeger]

People have the right (and should have the right) to decide what happens to the things they create.

And that's where a lot of people, including "real" artists, disagree with you. They don't have a selfish control-freak mentality, or hold The Law up as holy scripture set in stone, but they still manage to make a nice living without trying to enforce artificial scarcity or restrict people from standing on their shoulders.

The fact is that "intellectual property" is only something that can be owned as long as you NEVER let it out of its cage to infect other minds and culture. If it does get out, then the creation will only be respected in so far as society respects you and/or the old social contract (perpetual copyright).

IMNSHO, progress won't slow one bit just because it's no longer possible to enforce artificial scarcity.

"The economy of the future will be based on relationship rather than possession. It will be continuous rather than sequential." -- John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the EFF

--

News from the CRIA web site

[Txiasaeia]

On their web site here, they mention that they "know of [Canadian] users of file-sharing services who are individually uploading and distributing four and five thousand copyrighted songs to potentially tens of millions of people. This is indisputably an illegal practice." (Dec 5 2003)

Perhaps this indicates a lower limit of who they will be targeting, people who have four thousand songs available to share? Yes? Maybe?

Cut out the middleman

[quanta626]

I will gladly pay for music if I knew that the middlemen (CRIA) didn't skim off all those dollars to pay for their annoying advertising campaigns. They collect recordable media levies and the artists see squat.

The recording industry is a dinosaur in the post meteor strike world. Ample bandwidth on the internet makes distribution a breeze. Why pay for the fuel to truck CD's accross the country/seas/etc? If artists were to record their own music and distribute directly to the customers via the internet at a reasonable price perhaps they would see their fair share... and the CRIA/RIAA sees zero cents. The ISPs would then start to make some dollars off of bandwidth usage fees.

Music is information/digital. No need for the 'physical stuff' unless I want it. Then let me burn it myself. Of course being Canadian, I will then have paid for it twice... once to buy direct from the artist and again to the crooked middlemen imposing the levies to line the pockets of their broken business model.

I hope the CRIA follows its big brother the RIAA into the abyss of middleman hell.

Re:music should be freely shared.

[cfuse]

In days of yore, musicians made money by putting on shows, performing at the shows, etc.

Now we get Christina Aguilera dressed like a cheap street whore working her poochie on MTV on tape loop - ever get the feeling that the human race is regressing.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many Canadian artists are there anyway? Five? And Celine Dion is selling perfume these days not music so that brings the number down to four.

Xtal's Pissed Off Music Kiosk

[xtal]

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?

We need new laws

[oystur]

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.

So what about DVD sales and movie prices?

[xtal]

Music pricing is another constant. In fact, in the USA, it's gone down a bit. The average price of a CD is down to $13.50 in the US. In 1984, $9.99 was considered a decent price for an LP. That would be $17.30 in 2002 dollars. So, again, the recent huge drop in CD sales can't be attributed to pricing alone, as it's a constant.

In 1984, Movies cost around $100cdn to buy, IIRC. I see lots of DVD movies in Walmart for $14.99-24.99, including new and popular films. A large majority are priced cheaper than the movie soundtracks, something that always makes me chuckle.

I can put a collection of a years worth of "popular" and "pseudo-popular" programs on a couple DVDs. If uploading is quashed, then a much harder to regular and control sneekernet will quickly be established in schools. It's not that hard to do.

One thing I have been waiting for is a small device for doing PTP sharing in public. It would be unstoppable in a setting like a school - integrating 802.11 into an iPod is not technologically a difficult problem. I can imagine it giving people strokes in the record industry though - not just schools, but think subways, whatever.

Once the public has decided there is nothing wrong with 'free' music - then guess what, there probably will be free music. There effectively is now - think to the radio. There is no reason musicians cannot make money touring. There is good entertainment value in records. What will change, is the luxury offices for RIAA executives and private jets for the metallicas of the world will end.

This fight has never been about music copying. They're scared shitless of losing the distribution and production channels.

Philosophy

[AvengerXP]

Uploading, downloading, borrowing, distributing. All these are definable and open to interpretation. The philosophical repercussions are great but whether you like it or not, the bottom line decision will be because of a single character, a byte if you will.

'$'.

And that decision is : "Sue everyone, make cash, everyone's a pirate, screw personal rights".

In the long run, fair use and personal private copies and yadayadayada will not mean anything because of the said character.

It isn't the same as the US - thankfully

[rcpitt]

The Canadian government has already shown that when the law puts a significant percentage of the population in the position of being an un-caught felon, it recognizes that they have voted for change with their actions and moves to do something to remedy the situation.

Sometimes there are external (to Canada) influences that clog up the works and slow things down. Other times they do something that demonstrates the "law of unintended consequences" quite nicely ;)

We have pretty much recognized gay marriage

We are working on de-criminalizing (note: not legalizing) pot (much to the consternation of the US DEA - one of those external influences we get)

We recognized that "private copying" was a fact and was not likely to go away - so came up with the Blank Media Levy which might actually be a reasonable solution if the Copyright Board continues to show restraint

I make no guess as to what our dear government will do about "uploading" if anything; but they might.

In the mean time it should be noted that most of the large retailers selling music have lowered the prices significantly (the small retailers are being frozen out by the distributors and not getting the discounts "because they don't buy enough copies..." - a rant for another time). It remains to be seen if the number of units goes up. I expect it will - even though the total dollars may go down or stay even - and that is the point!

The dollars spent on music will likely stay even or maybe decline a bit - but this is not due to downloading, private copying, or whatever - it is due to external forces in action.

For example - the chocolate bar industry noted a decline in sales during the late 90s and early 2000s - and found that the reason was that their prime targets/customers (the teenagers) were using their disposable income to purchase cell-phone cards for text messaging and phone calls - leaving less to spend on chocolate.

Another influence - the music industry has released less music in recent years than they did previously - there is less to choose from and people are resisting (by downloading - "I've paid for 14 songs but only like 2 on this CD so I'll download another 12 to make up for it" maybe not done consiously - but it makes them feel better). The music publishers have also "perfected" the art of slicing and dicing the repetoir to force (or at least try to force) their target audience to pay for multiple CDs in order to get all the music they want, one or two songs per CD at a time - along with lots of crap put out as filler. I've suggested (to the Copyright Board) that this is in fact "tied selling" and should be viewed as a negative in adjusting the rate for the music levy - derating the "average" earnings per song in the calculation - they didn't bite this time but...

We've also had a bit of an economic turn-down recently too - but of course during such times people will always choose music over food won't they? ;)

The music distribution system is headed for a collapse - with the publishing companies and the industry associations losing out. Problem is that they don't want to lose their profit and influence so are fighting hard to lobby the governments to keep them around. This is what we have to fight. The continuation of an inefficient distribution system in the face of a complete paradigm change and disruptive technologies. It is the job of government to do what the population as a whole needs done in order to survive economically (and other ways but...) and if this means allowing one particular segment of an old industry to founder (the publishers) to the benefit of another segment (the artists) while keeping the general population from being all put in jail or saddled with onerous civil penalties for doing what "everyone is doing" then so be it - that's what we pay them the big bucks for.

There is no guarantee to any business that they will survive doing the sam

Re:It isn't the same as the US - thankfully

[MKalus]

Reading the list of responses (I don't see it offhand, but someone please post the link), its interesting to see the perspectives of many of the artists / producers (who've never seen a cent from that blank media levy).

Here's the link.

Of course you're 16

[Overly Critical Guy]

It's not shocking at all that you're 16.

Those of us who were ACTUALLY AROUND in the 70s know what the parent post was talking about. You're just deciding the 70s had more gold, because it's 2003 and you can look back on it and name all the good bands. Meanwhile, there were tons of top ten, disco-pop bullshit acts.

Today, we have bands that you list as bad which many people consider good--Green Day, Good Charlotte, not to mention everyone from The Strokes to Opeth to Metallica to Foo Fighters to A Perfect Circle to...well, hell, I'm just listing off certain bands I listen to. There is so much more. Maybe it's not the entire freaking music industry with tastes that are different, but just you instead?

If people didn't pirate the fuck out of every new album, maybe labels would be more willing to shell out money on the riskier acts. As it is, it's too expensive to expect a return on your investment when you know that if it turns out good enough, half of its sales will be robbed to convenient online piracy.

Sorry, kid, there's no justification.

Re:Of course you're 16

[qeveren]

Dear pedantic Slashbots: If cable theft is stealing, why is MP3 downloading "infringement?" Face it; it's stealing

Cable theft is theft-of-service. Downloading copyrighted MP3s is copyright infringement. Legal definitions, is how they're different. ;)

Well I can tell you one change I notice

[Sycraft-fu]

Is the way music is mixed and mastered. Today everything, is limited and compressed to hell. They squash all the dynamic range out of the music to make it sound louder. This pissess me off. I have a really nice setup that can reproduce impressive dynamics, I want to get use of it. But if the music is popular (this isn't done with Jazz and Calssical often thankfully) it is just limited like nothing else. It can be crap like Britney Spears or good stuff like Evanescence or Lacuna Coil, doesn't matter, it's all limitied to hell.

This just wasn't done in the 70s, probably because I don't think the look-ahead peak limiter had been invented yet. Even the crap still had at least SOME dynamic variance.

Then there is the fact that they are feeding everyone through the Antares Autotune all the time, even during live performances. I mean one of the thing that made some of the greats unique was their playing/singing OUT of tune. Heck, some kinds of music regularly makes use of quarter tones which is "out of tune" by western musical thinking.

I agree, there has always been shitty music. Hell, I've played shitty classical form the 1400s, it's not like there weren't crappy composers back then. The problem is lately they seem to be trying to homogonize all music and make it so that people literally CAN'T become great, even if the try.

This isn't even to mention their greedy licensing practises and their illegal behaviour.

Re:When American P2P violators buy canadian CDRs

[coke_dite]

The trouble with this is that there really isn't much money collected in this manner. Especially when you look at how it's distributed.

You can see how the levies are calculated here and read the actual Certified Tariff documents here