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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."
Class. Action. Lawsuit.
....because cd sales drops have nothing to do with things like slow economies, declining quality in music, overpriced cds.....
xao
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
Er, wait, they are doing something I *don't* like this time? That's hardly fair.
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...
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.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Please copy and distribute this article. It has a Creative Commons license.
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
I'm sorry. I didn't know you had it that bad up there.
Stop the Slashdot effect! Don't read the articles!
Its a lose-lose situation for the parties involved except for the lawyers and Celine Dion.
>> 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!
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
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.
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.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
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
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.
..don't panic
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
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it