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Canadian Minister Promises to Fix Copyright Law
Mashiki writes "In Canada, we can download Mp3's and their assorted goodness without too much of a hassle, recently the CRIA and their friends lost the court case. Well, it would appear that the new Federal Heritage Minister Helene Scherre, has spoken and those words were: 'As minister of Canadian Heritage, I will, as quickly as possible, make changes to our copyright law.'"
So does that mean the CD-R Tax disappears?
/not canadian
Implicit Evaluation with PHP
Even for Canadians.
I'm more concerned with the fact that I'm getting AOL CDs in the mail with jewel cases made of wood lol.
My faith in human (read: political) nature has been restored!
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
There are plenty of Democrats in bed with the movie and music industries. Howard Berman, a Democrat from California is probably their biggest backer in Congress.
That a federal election isn't that far off... And slogans like "Helene Scherre wants to put your kids in prison" look great on T-shirts and the news...
"Plug the hole." "Fix copyright law."
Is this good, or whack? I can't quite figure out who wants what.
This isn't flamebait, it's the truth. But I guess there's no option for voting -1, DoublePlus Bellyfeel Ungood.
Between governments and the people. Already countries have to compete for the best citizens. Eventually they will realize this means making laws people _like_ as well. I'll postpone my departure to Canada until the dust has settled.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Fair enough. Some people download music, some people don't. But consider his quote:
/.'ers comment that the music industry is holding onto a failing business. We don't need them anymore. Despite being wrapped up in the industry by being the winner of a [cheap knock-off] American Idol* contest, he sees the Industry's role as "a new way to survive," as opposed to some criminal challenge that they must overcome.
"I think it's a challenge for the industry, to try and find a new way to survive."
This lends creedence to many a
My hats off to him, especially given his previous quote, "Whether people download or not, as long as they're listening to music."
* Yes, I'm a Canadian. Paul Martin has yet to earn my respect.
It's hardly the truth. There are people in both major parties that back the RIAA and MPAA. It's not a partisan issue at all.
I wonder what she means by "Fix" when talking to the recording industry. I have a feeling that it would coincide perfectly with "break" to everyone else.
The real criminals don't break laws; They write them.
This is just one minister. Whether or not she can pass any bills is up for debate. The bottom line is that we pay levies now to download music, and the music industry shouldn't be able to make us pay levies and buy music. They can't screw us twice without someone noticing. Recently someone noticed too.
Hi there
Canadian Idol winner Ryan Malcolm expressed skepticism, and suggested the Canadian music biz find a way to live with file-sharers.
"Whether people download or not, as long as they're listening to music," he said.
"I think it's a challenge for the industry, to try and find a new way to survive."
Wow I've never heard that from someone outside of slashdot, now we just need american idol singers to say that, and maybe nsync and britney spears, then MAYBE (doubtfull) people would listen.
What really kills me is that Bill Mahr (I think he's really funny and I love his show on HBO) calls downloading music stealing just like tons and tons of other people. It isn't stealing, you can't steal something by copying it, I wish more people would understand that. It's copyright infringment, not stealing.
We will, as quickly as possible, remove minister Helene Scherre from office.
(/me dreams of being Canadian just for a while)
Ceci n'est pas une signature
So in what world is putting a file that you do _NOT_ own the copyright on, and have not actually obtained permission from the copyright holder to copy for purposes beyond fair use, in a publicly shared folder for others to obtain _not_ a violation of the copyright act?
Downloading copyrighted materials may be perfectly legal in Canada (albeit unethical IMO, since one is aiding another in violating copyright), but it makes no sense to even _BEGIN_ to tolerate uploading whenever and wherever you can positively ascertain that it is occurring.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...keep Bob and Doug McKenzie from making any new records, I'll go with whatever law, or lack of laws.
And get Rik Emmett back into Triumph!
Well, and sharing musing with 10 million of your Internet buddies should be a copyright infringement. The copyright holders should have a right to re-inforce their legal protections. Why copyright it in the first place if it makes no difference? So the Gov't should "correct" the copyright law in this case.
/. point-of-view, but I don't care. It's the truth.
However, as with all things corporate and gov't marital, there will be abuse. What shouldn't be "corrected" is the fact that currently, the CRIA (or whatever they are called) can't enforce the law themselves. Control the gov't. Sue whoever they want because a Word document file is named brittanyspears.mp3.doc or whatever.
The gov't should enforce the copyright based on copyright law and have as little direct or direct-indirect influence from the corporate entities. The relationship should be that the copyright holder file for the copyright and if they suspect it is being violated, come up with the burden of proof. None of this "settle with us for $2000 or we'll sue for 2 million" nonsense that so encombers our current US legal system while other more appropriate legal issues are getting second treatment while the courts are tied up.
But in all, the fact that the current copyright law isn't protecting the copyright holder is indeed a problem that needs to be corrected, just not by the CRIA/*IAA cronies.
This isn't a popular
Thanks,
Leabre
There is no doubt that the singers and other supporting personnel do need to make money from their talents. For this to happen, people have to buy their music. But when people share music collections on P2P services, the artistes are, without doubt, robbed of their fruits of labour.
However, at the same time, it must be noted that more c90% of proceedings from CD sales go to the record labels. P2P sharing hits more the big record labels than the actual artistes.
A P2P system where the artistes get paid per song downloaded would be an ideal solution.
Canadian Idol winner Ryan Malcolm expressed skepticism, and suggested the Canadian music biz find a way to live with file-sharers.
"Whether people download or not, as long as they're listening to music," he said.
"I think it's a challenge for the industry, to try and find a new way to survive."
The vast majority of artistes vehemently support electronic means of music distribution over the CD method. They have been ripped off by record labels for too long. Sadly, the United States of America, has now become United Corporations of America, and all laws dealing with P2P file sharing has been enacted according to the dictates of the rich record labels and their lobby groups. The wishes of the artistes are hardly ever taken into consideration. It'll be a sad day indeed if the much more socially progressive nation of Canada follows in the footsteps of her corporacratic Southern Neighbour.
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Nothing to see here
Check out movie industry contributions / music industry contributions. The Dems are the party of Hollywood...
The court decision inspired panic in the Canadian music industry; industry spokesmen were predicting the collapse of copyright control would cause severe financial hardship for people making their living from music.
If only the people making their living weren't suffering at the hands of labels and record companies/associations already, I might even agree with the people on this side (the CRIA) of the fence.
We all know that artists who don't make enough drama or news to get endorsements, major deals and huge publicity, already have a difficult time making their money from their music alone.
Green's Law of Debate: Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
The key part of the Canadian ruling was that sharing files is perfectly legal. They didn't say distributing was.
Basically, if you leave a copy machine in a room full of copyrighted books, no copyright violation has been comitted. Now, that copy machine could certainly be used in infriging ways, and it can also be used in a few ways that are okay under fair use. But if the machine just sits there and nobody uses it at all... then there's no way there's any infinging use could have happened.
Translated to the digital world, a server that is offering files up for download can't infringe any copyright until somebody actually accesses the files to make an illegal copy. And this brings up a Catch 22 for the "copyright police"... see, in order to actually prove that there was a download they either have to either intercept a download in progress (good luck doing that...) or they have to initiate a download themselves, but whoops... if the copyright owner tries to download their own work, they can't possibly infringe on themselves!
So, basically, there's a problem in the law that's driving the "copyright police" crazy... short of the copyright pirate confessing, how are they gonna prove that an actual violation took place?
Americans: Mind your own business.
The Hon Helene Scherrer
Minister
House of Commons
CANADIAN HERITAGE
Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1A 0A6
Telephone:
(613) 995-4995
Fax:
(613) 996-8292
Her experience/resume doesn't seem to indicate that she might be well versed in the intricacies of the legal system regarding this issue:
Helene Scherrer, Minister of Canadian Heritage
DMCA was passed by Clinton
Senator Disney Hollings is Democrat
so is Hollywood Congressman Rick Bermann
please, get out of your partisan bubble and see the light. its not just one side
Just because you claim it's the truth, doesn't make it true. You need to remove your head from your ass and get a few facts. Study the history of copyright law. You may be amazed to find that you have virtually no understanding of the subject. Study the opinion of the judge in the Canadian case. Right now you don't have the slightest clue what he said. And then when you have done all that, read about how downloading music doesn't harm sales of music, and may actually help in some cases. Then maybe you'll have some idea of the truth.
Well....
/end rant
I for one welcome our American Overlords.
But they can keep the DMCA.
BTW: You have some facts blatently incorrect. Many countries have used poison gas, some against its citizens.
Now, while the US may be interested in growing and keeping markets open to trade, don't think other countries don't also feel this way.
Why do you think the Russians, Germans, and French were the big complainers about Iraq?
Hmmmm? You ever see the numbers on weapons to Iraq? I just named the top 3 contributors, and America was not even in the top 5. Hell, even CANADA sold weapons to Saddam.
Oh, and Iraqi pre-war exports? Hmmm I think I also named the top 3. So, did they Europeans really want to stop Saddam, but use different means, or did they just want to keep the status quo of them getting rich off the backs of the persecuted Iraqi's? Hmmm?
Ask yourself some hard questions you neo-stalanist. You are of the same breed of idiots that would defend suicide bombers, all the while they are using your misplaced sympathy to impose Islamo-fascist regimes around the world, and terrorize... you guessed it... secular-social democratic people around the world.
STFU with your damned jealousy of the worlds biggest and best superpower. It smacks so badly of "my country is small and pitful, so I'll complain about the US". Every nation on this planet has done terrible things. Hell, even Canada uses ID CARDS like in South Africa to say who is and isn't an "aboriginal". They are creating genocide there by means of disinterest.
Oh my gawd, they killed kenny's mod points!!!!
Buy off a minister to change the laws for you.
Oh goody. Did the RIAA pressure them into it? You know this sucks we Canadiens, it seems, dont even have real power over what we can do.
Activists United
Do you realize that AIDS is not curable? Do you realize that these anti-AIDS drugs you talk about prolong your life a 3 or 4 years, but you will still die regardless? Do you realize that prolonging the life of an african with aids means he will have more time to infect other people?
Of course you don't.
Just think, our very own Senator! Cash value 1/100 of senate...
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
i agree. I was talking to a militant pro-lifer yesterday. (Side note -- ever notice most pro-lifers are white men?). I showed him some of the stories michael 'edited'. He decided that abortion was ok, and even recommended, in some cases.
Or hopefully some smart lawmaker will call it "The Lets All Let the Bloodsucking Record Industry Make Laws For Us Enactment" and it will be pidgeonholed.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Sir ApacheTroll,
8 319565" in their web server directory.
Please inform the Slashbot crowd that they will need to redirect all HTTP requests to said gif, because I seriously doubt that they would have the valid path "/?ad_id=2688&alloc_id=6532&site_id=1&request_id=
Please make necessary revisions, kthnx.
First of all...Canadian Idol? hehe.
So the canadian idol winner goes to say....
Canadian Idol winner Ryan Malcolm expressed skepticism, and suggested the Canadian music biz find a way to live with file-sharers. "Whether people download or not, as long as they're listening to music," he said
Easy for him to say. The only people that will be listening to his music in a few months are those that accidently download it.
Well....
I for one welcome our American Overlords.
I don't, the American Government needs to be "fixed" before I'd ever consent to that.
Why do you think the Russians, Germans, and French were the big complainers about Iraq?
But you didn't see China complaining about the invasion of Afghanistan, now did you.
Hmmmm? You ever see the numbers on weapons to Iraq? I just named the top 3 contributors, and America was not even in the top 5. Hell, even CANADA sold weapons to Saddam.
You are more or less correct, however, AMERICAN companies in CANADA sold weapons to Saddam. Thanks muchly, you can keep your MIC along with the DMCA.
STFU with your damned jealousy of the worlds biggest and best superpower. It smacks so badly of "my country is small and pitful, so I'll complain about the US".
The United States of America has some pretty serious problems, and the 15% of your population that controls the democratic process needs to be expanded, to deal with these problems. IMO.
Every nation on this planet has done terrible things. Hell, even Canada uses ID CARDS like in South Africa to say who is and isn't an "aboriginal".
Yes, it is. But would you argue for no status for aboriginals who are presently not in the same social levels as the rest of the country? Do what the United States has done with the immigrant populace, or even the prison population. That's the american way isn't it, don't identify any cultural groups at all and just ignore the problems.
They are creating genocide there by means of disinterest.
As a first nations person, I can say that there isn't disinterest by the government nor many people. Perhaps there's disinterest from the commercial sector, but what do you expect? It's not like many bands are wealthy, you know.
Why is the parent moderated troll? It should be Funny, I'm still laughing!
You guys are this close to getting voted off the continent. Yeah, I saw Mexico's confessional the other week, and they're just itchin' to cut you Canucks off.
In all seriousness, for as fun as it is to rip on Canadians, being a (United States of) American myself, in the last few years I've come to appreciate Canada a lot more. Despite the fact that we share so much of our culture (Quebec residents excluded), this only serves to highlight some of the differences in our attitudes and our social and political systems. Sure, Americans find a lot of little things about Canada weird (mounties, mooses, and Manitoba, to name a few), but I think Canadians have been a great check on our sanity as of late. A lot of Americans like myself look to those funny guys up north and think, you know, if they go for public health care and sit out aggressive invasions, there's hope for us, too.
Which brings us to copyright law. The recent ruling seemed an inspiring victory, not necessarily for filesharing, but for users' right to privacy on the Internet. I really hope that all you Canadians out there manage to fend off this current threat. Ideally, I'd like to see Larry Lessig's system, wherein musicians are paid directly a share of general royalties collected based on their popularity (a la ASCAP), implemented somewhere (you could even start funding the royalty pool with the levy on blank CDRs). Who knows, if it works out well enough, maybe we'll even steal the idea (a la Lorne Michaels, Dan Akroyd, Mike Myers, etc.). Good luck, my Canadian friends.
(Just a side note: I'm a Michigander, which is about as close to a half-breed as you can get. If any statements seem incongruous, consider them sufficiently explained.)
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
I'm sorry I did not post this to the journal area, but the discussion there had been archived.
Do you think the Radio Shack employee may have been thinking about DVD Video recorders? Other then that, DVD burners do not compress data that they write to the media. I have burned DVDs that contain mostly zeros, and they still cut out to the edge of the disk.
Daisy Duck is going to have a SCREAMING WET ORGASM when she wins the Canadian Idol contest. She will then go home to Donald Duck and suck him off to the most sensual SCREAMING ORGASM he has ever experienced.
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/incrp-prda .nsf/en/rp01134e.html
looks and sounds like the dmca. everyone who is canadaian write her and voice your anger please.
No, in Soviet Russia, the law copies you!
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Her email address: Scherrer.H@parl.gc.ca
& u=/washpost/ 20040330/tc_washpost/a34300_2004mar29
Paul Martin's email: Martin.P@parl.gc.ca
Honourable Ms. Scherrer;
I have heard your recent comments about seeking to change the Copyright Act.
I would urge you to consider very carefully what steps are taken in any changes to this act. As the act stands, Canadians pay a levy on
recordable media, money from which specifically goes to the music industry in compensation for supposed lost revenues.
As such if the law is changed, I would also expect any media levies to be immediately lifted, as the proper method for handling any cases
of copyright infringement would then fall to the music industry and the legal system of Canada, and not to a discriminatory levy applied
to the majority of law-abiding citizens.
Beyond this, the issue of whether revenues are lost at all is entirely debatable, as you can see in this story from the Washington Post
citing a study done by two university researchers specializing in economics:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story
I realize that I am not of your riding, but I have been a Liberal voter for many years now, even though I live in Calgary, Alberta. I
am probably one of the few Liberal voters here.
However, this issue of copyright is a very important one to me because those countries that address the issue properly stand to be at the
fore-front of the information economy. Limiting information flow to prop up business models that simply are no longer feasible is not the
way to go about this. While I do not support the policies of the Conservatives, your actions on this issue will certainly be enough to
determine whether I decide to place my vote in a party other than the Liberals in the coming election.
I do not feel that I am alone.
Thank you for your time.
Name & Address Stuff
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Only HTTP requests to 127.0.0.1, and using Apache is overkill. A simple little local web server app that serves gifs isn't that hard to whip up.
I wonder what she means by "Fix" when talking to the recording industry.
Well as my dog would tell you if he could talk, getting fixed is not good.
Plain and simple, she is cutting their balls off.
No, he wasn't flaming anyone - he merely mentioned that offhand, and elaborated on the subject. Did you even read his post?
...US declares Canada a terrorist organization, says new copyright policy will cause Hell to freeze over...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Yeah, and the irony is stealing is closer to what the Corporates are doing, because they are reducing the public's access to stuff - either by extending copyright periods (retroactively even) and reducing/removing "fair use".
When you copy something the owner still has full access to the original.
But when you extend a copyright on something that would have entered public domain, the public loses what would have been rightful access to it.
So who are the real thieves?
Pity too many people are too ignorant to see that - they have been intentionally brainwashed by the Corporates - with deceptive terms and phrases like Intellectual Property, Piracy, Copying=Theft.
I've written to my local newspaper regarding this, and they did print it (but naturally the industries concerned have a stronger lobby and voice than I do), maybe more people should write in and educate the rest.
http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/pc-ch/min/contac ts/index_e.cfm
yeah - you tell him.
go fuck yerself eh!
You have the idea of the "Band Card" really F*^Ked up. It is not a method of discrimination. It is voluntary AND the only thing it does is provide benefits. With it an aboriginal can vote for their band leader and which gives them and their culture recognition, and exempts them from paying taxes. It is not genocide. There have been initiatives to relieve this "apartheid" in Canada and they have never been well accepted by the exact population that we are accusingly discriminating against. You should really look into this. There may be problems in Canada and yes even in the aboriginal community but the Band Card is not one of them. Hos is that for a /. rant?
Burn Bright or Fade Away
See my sig...
Let's put it all on the table if we're going to deal with this problem seriously and take a good, hard look at how musicians are compensated from both ends -- producers and consumers.
I have a feeling a lot of record companies would tone down the rhetoric or employ frantic hand waving if their business practices were exposed to some scrutiny. I do not understand why artists haven't brought up the issue of royalties before the Internet and I'd wager the total value of royalties "lost" to file sharing pales in comparison to the amount record companies extort.
Personally, I do not download music from Kazaa and the like, but I have used Puretracks. If services like Puretracks or iTunes existed years ago we might not be in the mess we are now.
http://cb-cda.gc.ca/news/c20032004fs-e.html
BTW SaveCanadianLiberties.com (and friends) aren't taken yet AFAICS...
I hate it immensely when governments LOOSE court cases, and then cry poor baby, and then change the laws, like fuck the law, i mean if they loose, they really can 'force' it so they can win. Part of the court ruling should be that the govt cant then go back and 'fix' the laws. Why have laws, lets have a dictatorship since basically the govt does what it wants to a large extent, until they get voted out but the boys already have their big business deals and friends in high places...
It happens everytime btw, not just about (C) crap, but even minor laws or small so called 'loop holes'.
Rise up!! Revolution be cometh 2012.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Copyright Goon: Your honor, we want the ISP to turn over the name of the user who has IP adress 14.34.23.29 because they are sharing "Our Song", which is our copyrighted material on the Internet.
Judge: Okay, how do you know that a computer 14.34.23.29 is committing copyright infingement against your copyrighted material.
Copyright Goon: They're offering our material up for sharing over the StealTheirMusic protocol for anybody to download.
Judge: Okay, can you prove that anybody actually downloaded that material?
Copyright Goon: Yes, because we downloaded "Our Song" from that server.
Judge: Uhm... that's not an unauthorized copy being made if you downloaded your own song. You started the download, you authorized the copy being made.
Copyright Goon: Uhm... okay. Can we search the guys computer to see if there's transfer logs that prove he transfered "Our Song" to somebody else?
Judge: No. You've gotta show that there's been an infigement first. You can't go blindly fishing like that.
Copyright Goon: Can you make the ISP let us get a trace on that IP's outbound traffic so we can look for a transfer?
Judge: No. That's still fishing.
Copyright Goon: But we're sure they're stealing "Our Song" out there. Our sales are down!
Judge: Come back when you've got some proof...
If those rich CU*** can hire lawyers and accountants to reduce their taxes and have 'fake' investments with 'relatives' living in their 'properties' for tax reasons and as a result pay 5% tax of their 6-7 figure income, then thats stealing.
If us poor shmucks download gigs of music and dont buy any, then who cares, no one looses. Its why they download in the first place, coz they are poor, or are made poor by rich pricks earning too much.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Remember when Music was an art? Once upon a time tickets to concerts were affordable, radio had less commericals and DJ's played what they thought was good music, albums were cheap enough so you could buy at least 5 of them without costing over 100 dollars (who knew that switching to a format that was digital which makes it easier to make and cds that cost less than a penny to produce would cost over 400% mark up to the consumer). The average person who has trouble covering all his bills and rent cant afford to pay to get the music they want anymore. We aren't even allowed to hear or preview the music we like anymore cause they dont play it on the radio or the TV. But we listen to the radio and tv anyway cause there is nothing else and since you play the same 5 songs over and over again eventually one of the songs gets stuck in our head. Hey we might even like it for a moment. So we buy that cd for 20 bucks just to get that song out of our head, and we are left with that one song and 7 other tracks of pure garbage, they just threw on there so they could sell an album. But that 20 bucks is all we could spend, we dont even get to experiment and buy something we havent heard before on the off chance that it might be something we like cause we simply cant afford it. We had no choice in the matter of sharing music, music is an art we need in our lives. You the recording industry turned music into a price fixed Coporate Facist Organism(see the music settlment for more details) then you turn it around to make it look like you are the victums and we are hurting the artists. It looks a little silly when Millionaires are complaining about money when there are millions of people who have no jobs and we are struggling to get food on our plates. Sue our children because their parents can only afford to keep them in new clothes and not give them extra money for 20 dollar cds! Artists if you aren't getting enough money, it is not the publics fault, look to the people who have the money. Artists dont always get the best contracts (look what happened to the Dixie Chicks, they had to sue their own record label to get the money they deserved). Entertainment is suppose to be affordable because its an extra in life and when you make it out of our reach you hurt yourselves... Look at whats happening to Cinema where in some places its gone up to 10 dollars per ticket.Stop turning Art into Industry. I like the fact that I can go to art gallery for free and see wonderful pieces of artwork or that I can go to a museum pay 5 dollars and see famous artists' works like Picasso or Rembrandt as much as I want. There is only so long you can take advantage of the public before it backfires. Save yourselves by lowering your cd prices to the point of affordiblity and firing your executives and giving radio back to the people. We are just regular people, we are not thieves. You give us a reason to buy your music and you will be suprised.
Trix are for kids!
>Canadian Minister Promises to Fix Copyright Law
Nothing to fix. It ain't broke.
Oh, wait... er...
[cough]
I guess that would be "Power to the Faceless Corporate Money!".
If nothing else, it's refreshing to know that Canadians get the best Government that special-interest money can buy too.
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
I'm not sure how many Americans follow Canadian politics but right now it doesn't look like the next liberal government will be very strong. Unlink the last 2 elections theres not a hope in hell for them to get a majority goverment. If a party like the NDP (basically softcore socialists) has a decent number of seats they'll fight against any changes in Canadian copyright laws. Its all up in the air right now.
Moo!
if by "fix" you mean "neuter".
The shareholder is always right.
_nfotxn
Whose butts are we killing in Antarctica?
Did the penguins start up a new government that has motives not in line with the US government?
There are identical levvies (well, not in dollar amount but in structure) in the US. We pay money to the RIAA for every blank digital tape and CD sold. We also pay for recording devices which write to those types of media.
The recording industry should not make artists sign over their copyrights. If the music execs purport to protect the poor artists, then they should do business with these artists without requiring that they sign over anything.
The music execs should stop promoting all the garbage music that they promote. This is the real cause of declining music sales. If the music execs would promote quality music instead of this garbage, they would most likely see increased sales. But instead of doing business wisely and increasing profits through smart management and marketing, they prefer to litigate.
The music execs should stop overcharging for CDs. This is probably the second cause of declining music sales. People simply don't want to pay $20 for an album, and one that contains 1 or 2 good songs and 8 filler tracks to take up space. If the music execs would lower music prices instead of raising them and then wondering why sales decline, they would most likely see increased sales. But instead of doing business wisely and increasing profits through smart management and marketing, they prefer to litigate.
The music execs should pay the artists the larger portion of the pie when it comes to music revenue. If the sale of a fifteen dollar album currently earns the artists about two cents, then that is a very sad situation, and it means that the music execs are the ones screwing the artists over, not those downloading MP3 tracks. The music execs should pay roughly 95% of the profits to the artists, and keep the 5% as their fees. Not the other way around. But instead of doing business wisely and increasing profits through smart management and marketing, they prefer to litigate.
In other words, the pirates are the music execs. But they use P2P users as their scapegoat, blaming them for a reduction in music sales, when the evidence is highly questionable at best, and is probably nonexistant.
MUSIC EXECS: *Y*O*U* ARE THE PIRATES!
I think that those who compared the sharing with installing a photocopier in the library are on to something. The trick questions is: what is distribution? IMHO, we should re-evaluate what consitutes a "distribution", given that it became so cheap an simple with the advent of the Internet.
Just like people noted before, when I share a file on a p2p network, I'm not really distributing it. Every downloader had to 1. get a computer 2. get an Internet connection 3. get a p2p client 4. find the file 5. initiate the downloading. Understandably, there's an illusion of a distribution here, because a p2p network beats any library by its size, and all of them put together by its content, but I am still willing to argue that downloaders do more for the "distributing" than the sharers.
Sharing was made possible by a technology that could not be envisioned when the copyright law was created, and we won't get far by suing people who engage in it. A legal change is what we desperatly need: a kind of a copyright law that would allow artists to get paid, while all people are able to share the information in an unrestricted manner, for non-commercial purposes. I'm am of opinion that art will survive even if we go all the way and declare information free, but heck, I'll settle for a voluntary collective licensing scheme too.
Having said all that, the minister seems to be moving in just the opposite direction, but after I've seen RIAA, I'm not surprised anymore...
We only pay for Audio CDs. Data CDs used as audio CDs don't have that cost.
Implicit Evaluation with PHP
you are all going to hell for all the artists that have starved to death becaues you download music.
shame!
Obviously, the only explanation for these new insane Canadian laws is that Sadam Hussein has taken over the government!
If services like Puretracks or iTunes existed years ago we might not be in the mess we are now.
Online music download services did exist before now.
The record industry killed the original music download services that were founded in the late-1990s.
Those services did their best to work with the industry, license music from the industry and offer songs to music fans through subscriptions, downloads and streaming formats with copyright and DRM protection.
The record industry either sued them, refused to cooperate with them outright, or only did so in a way that would ensure the services would fail. The infant online music services were only allowed access to a limited portion of back catalogs -- namely songs for which there was little to no demand.
By refusing to license and denying the fledgling services licenses to the popular songs of the day (or even the hits of yesteryear), the music industry effectively and deliberately doomed those services to failure in what is largely hit-driven business.
The greed of the music industry and its unwillingness to share its music through licenses was the catalyst for free music-sharing services. The linchpin of the music industry was its ability to control the means of distribution. Distribution was historically among the biggest barriers to entry for music artists. Because of the Internet and broadband access, distribution isn't a barrier to entry for the musician like it once was. The music industry now has an unsustainable business model.
In the process of denying its customers music in the way they wanted to access it, the industry has slit its own throat.
LMAO
Carefull Helene Scherrer! The fact that the recording industry is pulling in record (pun intended) profits this year asks the question; does sharing music really hurt the industry? People will never stop sharing their music with other people, music is simply much to social to hoard to oneself. I do believe in supporting the artists, but am becoming further disenchanted with the recording industry in their bully tactics. This has NOTHING to do with the artists, but EVERYTHING to do with the big recording industry. The recoding industry is so far out of sync with their target audience they are terrified. And they should be. I like the millions of other Canadians will continue to support artists and still enjoy the sharing of music. These two are not exclusive of each other. cheeers
As a Canadian, I have two words for you
FUCK YOU.
Prove to me it hurts the artist, and I'll abide.
And she will be the first politician in history that have a nonpolitical fan site?
:)
Forever remembered as the canadian pirate
What I still don't understand is why they're subsidizing this antiquated industry. Traditionally when new technology comes along that makes the old way of doing things inferior industry is forced to abandon that old way and adapt to "the new hotness." As capitalists, this is essentially our mantra.
For instance: The method of marketing the recording industry has been using for years is no longer viable. I'm talking about the way they hype and market sole tracks (singles) of an album while filling much of the rest with filler (remixes, reissues, live songs, half-assed songs, etc.)
Capitalist/Traditional Solution: Produce real albums (with direction, emotion, and *gasp* content) that are actually worth $18.00 or do away with the album idea all together and simply release singles in a lossless format (FLAC for instance). Prices for these singles would have to be reasonable. How can you expect someone to pay $1 for what will most likely amount to under 30 minutes of entertainment.
Current "Solution:" Allow the major record companies to sue anyone unwilling to waste their money on filler or buy tracks that are already encrypted in a lossy format for $1/song (which really is not much of an improvement in terms of price point).
Canada and the United States should be more concerned with maintaining an entertainment industry that isn't feared and loathed by the general populace. I think Washington and groups like the CRIA\RIAA have forgotten this is an entertainment industry and have become far too worried about the bottom line.
Another question is why the pop fed record industry is subject to this favorable treatment while industries which actually produce valuable services and technologies are outsourced (IT).
Find em here
"But then we are not allowed to distill it, well just because."
Ah, thanks - that's the word I couldn't find. Almost the same laws here (you're correct: Scandinavia, Sweden - good call, and even without the disallowed umlauts in my name :) ). Distilling is illegal, but beer and some types of wine are allowed.
And possession of a distiller is illegal here too - of any size. Actually, some friends of the family have an antique brass distiller they didn't want to part with. Took some serious effort, but eventually the authorities came, plugged it (rendering it useless, although it was just a decoration in the first place) and provided a certificate for owning the thing sans distilling capability. The police made regular check-ups to make sure no alcohol was produced with it. Your basic "tax kronor at work" thing... ludicrous.
668.5
The library and copier analogy fails on two points. The first is that the library itself bought the books. This is only true of the first person to provide the MP3 file for uploading. Any uploading of the copy cannot be related to any library/copier function. The second is that the copier is not used to provide another copy of "War and Peace". It is used to grab bits and pieces of information. Using if for an entire book is just as illegal as downloading the MP3. Note, I am NOT taking a position on the MP3 copy issue, not interested, but bad analogies annoy me and this one is worse than usual. papaZen
-beware the man of one book
Isn't a government supposed to represent the will of the people? how is this lady doing her public service by attacking millions and millions of canadians by 'plugging holes'? I think as Canadians we need to band together and let this lady know what she is doing is not something we want. I was extremely happy to hear the Judges decisions and stunningly correct logic in his ruling, and am severly dissapointed in hearing this come from our Heritage minister, how is this even her job? how is stopping Canadians from listening to music that they enjoy and can choose to pay for and who to support in the record industry related to canadian heritage? has anyone found the address/email of her office? I'd love to send her an email with my feelings on her decision.
Now can you guys see why its ok to send _politicians_ to camp x-ray?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
According to this article (Sorry, Swedish only) the Swedish music publicist Bonnier Music will stop using copy protection on their records.
"If copy protection does not give satisfactory availability to the music people pay for it is a total fiasco", says Ludvig Werner of Bonnier Music.
The big international record companies forces their Swedish subsidiaries to use copy protection on their records, even though they think that the current copy protection schemes are unsatisfactory.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
Does anyone here know the process for finding out were Helene Scherrer recieves campaign contributions from? I know a few websites that list this information for US politicians but as a Canadian I'd like to see this information for some of my elected representatives.
I've never tried sending email to an MP, but I have written on paper before, and at least the office of the Minister of Justice (under Martin Cauchon), and Foregin Affairs (under Bill Graham) are quite good about actually reading letters and replying to them.
I also recommend cc:ing your MP.
[TMB]
When this is absolutely true!
Yes! Truth hurt sometimes.......
In the USA, entertainment tunes into *you*
I would hope if they say you cant share up there then they'll stop the media taxes you currently have to pay. It's by far one of the most idiotic taxes I've ever seen. Guilty before proven and stuff.
...the copy is made on-demand. Is it made by the sharer, or the downloader?
Sharing a file in itself makes no copies. So, there's no copyright violation until an actual copy is made. And when a copy is made, one of the two parties is making the illegal copy, the question is which one.
Yes, it is made on the sharer's machine. But you may again argue that this is like making it on the library's photocopier. What the court seems to have found is that it is the downloader that is initiating the copy, and thus the downloader that is guilty of copyright infringement.
That, combined with the legality of making a copy for private use, means it looks like Canadians are home free. At the moment, neither sharer nor downloader can be prosecuted for copyright infringement. Something tells me that'll change. Quickly.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
there are a few (now ultrarich) young canadian pharmacists out on the prairie who figured out how to shine a little canadian socialized healthcare common sense onto america's grim capitalist healthcare financial triage "system" and sell their (morally) cheap drugs to americans dying to pay for the advertising campaigns of pharmaceutical companies...
;-(
so, the question is, when will an enterprising young computer dweeb with some extra broadband get into the selling of canadian proxy server share time for the benefit of americans who want to download without the threat of ip lawyers bent on owning and corporatizing all of american culture suing them into bankruptcy for the love of blink 182 or no doubt?
young brave canadians, i salute you, give us suffering southern neighbors a break and shine some of the benfits of your more humane, more benign government on us geopolitically landlocked wretches
"oh canada!..."
with marijuana legalization looming on the border too, i am really beginning to wonder how the hell america fell behind in the robustness of it's social freedoms to a spineless crown colony who had to be forcefully weaned from the f*ing queen mum's tit (and the bitch is still on their money!)
oh well, but there it is folks: canada is a better place to live nowadays since canadians have more social freedoms then americans nowadays
i salute you canada
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I thought I'd share what I wrote to the Canadian Heritage Minister.
To: The Honourable Helene Chalifour Scherrer, Minister of Canadian Heritage
Greetings Honourable Minister,
I recently read with great dismay your new initiative to make file sharing of music over the internet illegal. I'm sorry to use such harsh language, but that is the stupidest idea ever. I understand your intent to protect Canadian music, after all that is the very purpose of your office, but what you are proposing will create thousands upon thousands of Canadian criminals overnight.
Your initiative is also something that criminologists call an "unenforceable law." There are potentially more than a million Canadians currently sharing music files on the internet, it would be utterly impossible for any law enforcement agency to ever enforce such a ridiculous and freedom stripping law.
Pierre Trudeau once said that the government has no business being in the bedrooms of the nation. I would take that sentiment further: The government has NO business or right to tell me what I can or cannot do with files that are on my computer.
Your suggested changes to the law would not help protect Canadian heritage or music in any way shape or form; it will simply ensure more profit for huge American record companies. Last time I checked, the name of the ministry you are the head of is "Ministry of Canadian Heritage" not "The Ministry of Protecting American Economic Interests in Canada."
If you persist in attempting to draft such a law I will campaign against you specifically, and your party in general with as much strength as I can muster. I'm quite certain that Prime Minister and Liberal Party Leader Paul Martin would not like the campaign slogan "Helene Chalifour Scherrer wants to put your children in prison" plastered everywhere during the upcoming election.
Hoping you give this a sober second thought,
X
Hon. Helene Scherrer
p le/house/PostalCode.asp?lang=E&source=sm">here</a>
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Right Hon. Paul Martin
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Also find your mp <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/peo
Keep in mind, you can send postal mail to an MP free of postage.
Who do you want to bribe tomorrow?
I was reading a Montreal newspaper a couple of days ago and they have picked up comments from some artists on the decision of the Canadian court to allow file-sharing.
So there's a singer who commented, can't remember his name, and he said that it's bad for the industry. He said that he himself haven't been affected because around here the customers are "loyal" but he's sure that p2p have a dramatic effect on the english part of Canada and on the US.
In short. UK and Australia try to hide record-breaking sales, this singer says that Quebec is not affected and yet the music industry is saying that p2p is a huge disaster that's gonna ruin there industry. Odds are that they are lying. Why? I'm not sure. The industry seems too old and too tired to adapt itself to change.
I think this applies here.
Why is it these female in power here in Canada always look like the mothers of the kids I use to play against in houseleague? You know, the ones that bitch and complain and yelled at the ref to do his job. Yet they're far from being able to strap on skates and do the job better. Why is that?
Some aim to please, I aim to tease.
The problem is that these recording industries simply do no understand one simple thing-- people are going to be pirating whether there are laws for it or not. In fact, all I have to do is basically wardrive, find an open WAP, get on the Internet, and download to my heart's content. I can even go to a Starbuck's and get on the network that many places offer, and again, download to my heart's content. Getting logins and passwords that don't match you is not exactly hard.
It's the same thing with hacking back in the day... scan for PBXs.. hack them (mostly because the default logins and passwords were left), get a PBX number, or if you are nimble enough make on for yourself, drive out to one of those green phone boxes sticking out of the green, alligator-clip yourself in at someone's number, and do whatever you need to do online, whether it's dialup to your BBS boards or dial into that company you've been dumpster diving.
All the music and movie industry is doing is shooting themselves in the foot. Instead of embracing the technology, they are marginalizing the people that are fans of the music and movies and whatever media that they donwload (which amounts to free advertising) and they all come off as the 800-lb gorilla that is out to get back at a bunch of kids who are swapping music for the most part and building a collection mostly because they like to collect things more than they like to listen to them. They're just driving people back underground and that's where the technology is going to evolve again.
Of course, the governments know where their bread is buttered. Hatch and Leahy have their idiotic US-PIRATE Act going through Congress and and now you have the Canadian government goosestepping along as well. These media companies contribute a lot more money to keeping them in control than 80 million kids downloading music off of the Internet, so they're just going to do whatever they have to in order to keep that money flowing anyway.
-=*(CC)*=-
He sounds like a typical American to me.
There is a Federal election expected in the next 3- 12 months in Canada. Much as this heritage Minister would like to suck up to the music industry, she also needs to listen to those of us who share files.
This is an ideal time to create a lobby group to vote as a block. We need to lay out a position and have the parties respond.
even though I live in Calgary, Alberta. I am probably one of the few Liberal voters here.
Wow, I thought I was the only Calgarian who voted Liberal, at least that's the way it feels like some times.
Solidarity, brother!
I agree. We should start enslaving European (and killing French) now for our own protection. Go USA!
The question is who is the Canadian Prime Minister speaking to? Who exactly is he going to try and fix the copyright for? Is it Canadian citizens or is it the Canadian music industry? This is the real question ya'll should be concentrating on.
This is just blatant politiking on the Liberals part.
Yesterday was the Canadian music awards ceremony here in Edmonton. The speech was made in Edmonton, to the assembled music bigwigs. Since it is an election year, probably has no grounds in reality. Also, the current Canadian PM was not voted in, and really has no mandate to do much of anything.
Interestingly enough the news has been a front page story in the paper the last few days. So maybe the general public will finally get involved.
Anyways, the Liberal Party just lost my vote( not that they ever had it anyways).
That rises an interesting question. Why do artists still need the record industry?
The record industry is doing several jobs: they produce the music (recording studio), they build the records, they distributes the record to the salepoints, they advertize the music.
It may be time to split these jobs beween several companies.
Similarly, instead of giving the money earned by copyrights to the recording industry, which gives it back (partially) to the artists, it may be time to give it directly to the artists who will pay back the different companies they used to produce and to distribute their music.
Please stop thinking the music industry is this great cash cow. Yes, the artists get (for the most part) a pittance and usually wind up owing the record label money (which the label tends to "forgive" if the record sells well), but the rest of that vast majority does not go to line the pockets of those big execs. Profit margins are slim, anywhere from 0.5 to 15%, depending on the label. You want to talk about corpulent assholes, take a look at cable companies, whose profits are more along the lines of 40%. And they still make me pay for channels I don't want...
c-hack.com |
Form your own lobby group. They lobby, you rant and rage on slashdot, and they win.
Corporations do not control America, they just lobby congress to increase their influence. Anyone is allowed to lobby congress. Put your money where your mouth is, form a lobby group, and try to gain more influence than just your vote. Stay focused only on changing copyright laws, and give money to both parties. Get representatives onto talk radio, news programs, and other places where politicians and ordinary voters get input, and start a debate outside of slashdot. You don't need to spend more than the industry, you just need to spend enough to create a debate. And obey the law until you can change it. Credibility is important.
Please, take the extra 30 secs, hit Print buy an envelope and send your comments to:
Hon. Helene Scherrer
Member of Parliment
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
(Contact Page)
No postage required. (If your letter prominately states that it is going to an MP, no postage is required)
The Honourable Ms. Scherrer:
... and are inconsistentM arch 2004.pdf
You were quoted as saying " I will, as quickly as possible, make changes to our
copyright law", in response to concerns expressed by the Canadian music industry.
As an author, I strongly support strong copyright protection against professional
thieves, but you should be aware that the so-called "sharing" on the internet has
increased the sales of my book and others. Readers go out and buy the printed
version, as it's far more convenient and portable than a computer.
I therefor support having my book available to "share", as it's to my financial
benefit, and that of my publisher.
I see the same thing happening with music. I strongly suspect that playing
music on the internet is financially advantageous to the artists and publishers.
As I'm elderly I don't download music: I listen to the CBC and buy CDs I like.
My younger friends say they listen on-line and then buy CDs. I don't have sales
figures for CDs that I do for my book, but a recent study by two academics who
do have the figures showed that the downloading has not done any detectable
harm.
The study, "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales An Empirical Analysis",
by Felix Oberholzer and Koleman Strumpf concluded "Downloads have an effect
on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero
with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the recent decline in music
sales." That reports is available at
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_
I would like to see continuing stringent protection for authors, but suspect
that playing music on the internet is about as dangerous to the artists and
their publishers as playing it on the radio.
I suspect this is much like the furor over VCRs and CD burners, and should
be dealt with the same way, with a levy on blank CDs. I would be quite
supportive of levies, including additional levies, on the CD media and
burners I use.
Sincerely, David Collier-Brown
davecb@spamcop.net
No postage is required if you are sending e-mail to an MP. In order to make this clear, you should probably send your letter to:
Hon. Helene Chalifour, M.P.
House of Commons
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
The important part being the (M.P.). I suppose if you really wanted to you could still send it to 407 Confederation Building, but I really think that Canada Post will be able to find the House of Commons.
If I have spoken better than other men, it is only because I have quoted giants.
--
make install -not war
I've sent my response to Scherrer:
... who owns the "heritage"? The people or the companies?
The way she's talking I'd guess the latter...
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Voting is good, it gets us to agree as a group on who will tell us what to do for the next term. The problem is the campaign: accountability is supposed to be in the reelection, or even recall. But we fetishize our leaders so much that we won't censure, impeach or recall them, except when an opposition party would gain enough to risk it before an election, when it's cheaper for the opposition to countercampaign. And when both parties serve roughly the same corporate agenda, serving different noncorporate agendas to win votes, neither party will allow the truth to be told about the corporate agenda.
What would help would be campaign promise accountability. Class action lawsuits are more palatable to voters, and less managed by political parties, than censure, impeachment or recall. So we should have some of those during a lying politician's term, with jail time hanging in the balance. The Supreme Court would probably dismiss them as without standing, but at least the people would be organized to use the existing procedures of censure, impeachment and recall. Until we're willing to begin that often fruitless, long and expensive process, we'll have to live with the lies. Hopefully the system can survive our lack of action, our slack pursuit of justice.
--
make install -not war
How a levy is different from a tax?
Thats what I read as the key point too.
So if I copy, package, sell/give it away on the street corners that is active participation and you have a good case for copyright infringment.
But if I just leave a directory publicly readable and a port open (or I leave my CDs out on my front porch) its too "passive" and not a copyright infringment.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I work in a Canadian government office, and an e-mail is treated exactly like a paper letter. In fact, the Heritage Minister's web site says that explicitly.
. cf m
http://www.pch.gc.ca/pc-ch/min/contacts/index_e
Sending an e-mail ensures that the minister will get feedback quickly after her comments, letting her know that there's a fire to put out.
Frankly, I don't see any new law happening before the next election, so the easiest solution is to vote the Liberals out. But be sure to let them know your intent anyway. I sent my e-mail off last night.
Yogurt in British Columbia
How much of a dent is it going to put in my wallet to get my own Federal Heritage Minister?
Wasn't Mulroney (Conservative) that renamed this ministry to Hertitage?
Culture is a more sensible name (and more Liberal) if you ask me.
You do know that it is possible to listen to music without first burning it to CD, correct?
(personally, I consider my hard drives to have a much longer lifespan than any CD - even if they don't physically, because it is very easy to copy them over. that and I'm obsessive about data.)
In Canada children under 12 are deemed to be incapable of understanding right from wrong and are thus not charged when they commit crimes. So, for example, a 10 that repeatedly steals cars for joyrides is simply returned home when apprehended (true story - this kid lived here in BC).
So, if you have an under 12 year old in your home, pin the rap on him/her and you're off the hook. Should be funny watching the recording industry lobby the government to bring some sanity to the way Canada deals with young offenders.
I suggest all Canadians who visit slashdot do the same. Fill her inbox, we know we can, and have her actually think about her actions. Here is the letter I just sent to her via:
. cf m
t ml ?tid=123&tid=141&tid=188&tid=9
http://www.pch.gc.ca/pc-ch/min/contacts/index_e
----------
Regarding Downloadable Music:
Ms Scherrer:
I find your bending to the will of the CRIA absolutely unforgivable. You obviously don't know or care to understand the basic precept of sharing music or what the CRIA/RIAA stand for. So let me give you some insight.
These bullies (RIAA./CRIA) are using the courts to bend the will of technology because they themselves are too scared or ignorant to understand it. I applaud the ruling of Justice Konrad von Finckenstein because he understands the value of personal privacy versus the financial coffers of CRIA/RIAA.
Do I think sharing music is theft? No. Why because when people hear a song they like they go find the CD in the store/on-line and buy it. It's akin to radio except it's m usic on demand. Do I think it has some ethical issues? Sure but then again so do
es the CD levy I am forced to pay every time I buy blank CD's to perform backups on my server. Did I get a say in that ruling? No I didn't. It was crammed down my throat like all the other taxes and levies the Canadian government forces on
it's populace. Personally if I feel the levy removes all ethical barriers from music sharing because the Canadian populace was smeared as thieves and forced to pay a levy tantamount to a fine.
Do I buy music anymore? No because of the antics and the illegal behaviour of such organizations as CRIA/RIAA. Do I support Canadian artists? 80% of my CD's are purely Canadian artists. I enjoy the music Canadian artists make but I am forced to stop buying it because of the antics of the CRIA/RIAA and the fact that not a single Canadian artist has spoken out against the levy. I find that appalling and disgraceful just like your commitment to assist criminals like CRIA/RIAA.
Before you commit to sending file sharers to court to defend themselves, look at the organization that you are supporting. They have been found guilty of price fixing multiple times. They sue 12 year old girls. They sue 80 year old women who don't even own a computer. They force people on welfare to pay $2500 USD in fines because they were fingered as sharing some music. The RIAA/CRIA target individuals because they will buckle due to cost of defence and the disruption a suit causes in ones life. This is barratry pure and simple.
I suggest before you make any more public comments on this topic you do some homework and find out exactly what the CRIA/RIAA stand for. I have provided you a link to a on-line news page which allows the readers to make comments. I suggest
you read with an open mind and really understand what the CRIA/RIAA stand for.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/04/03/2317226.sh
9
Do I expect a response? No, other than a form letter thanking me. I wouldn't expect you to be any different than all the other politicians that only care about people who can financially help you get reelected versus the people whom you are supposed to represent.
Does anyone know the average age of the downloaders? Are there any studies out there?
I might be wrong but I think people who make these laws are going to be in for a ruff ride when it comes to enforcement. They might have to put a lot of minors in jail.
First off I know a lot of youth (14-18 years old) and I visit some web forums for various topics. Now what suprises me is the age of a lot of the people on them. There are a lot of youth. They don't have money, but they have time and access to a computer. They spend a great deal of time on MSN (Hardly any of them have heard of ICQ) chatting, web forums and guess what downloading music.
I also propose that these Music exec's who complain about copyright infrigement should check under their own noses. Are their kids or grandkids engaging in this activity? I can almost certianly say so. Who isn't that is under the age of 25-20 and has a net connection?
What is the average age of a music sharer? I propose that a 80% of the file sharing is done by people under the age of 30 and that 40% or more occurs with people who are under 18 years of age. Especially in Canada where broadband has been around for a long time (6 years where I live).
The other problem with these laws and stuff is that music sharing has been going on for a long time. I was in high school when I was first exposed to it all. I remember what the first version of Internet Explorer looks like. Windows 95 had just come out! Whoo! At the time everyone who was in Visual Communications or who knew about comptuers was into downloading music and making MP3's! This was over 7 years ago! It's been going on a long time. It's embeded into our culture all ready. It's almost too late to change the laws now.
Back when this all started my friends where into Warez as well. I don't know what else to call it. But they downloaded software just for the sake of downloading it. A friend of mine had over 200 applications. Some like lightwave, windows, office, and oddles of games. Probably worth MILLIONS OF DOLLARS if bought retail. He probably had over 20 burned CD's at the time (7 years ago). I don't remember how many MP3 CD's he had but I know it was over 11. When your young you have the time to download all sorts of stuff and learn how computers ect. work.
The other problem is ignorance. Parents have no idea what their kids are doing on their computers. If they can hardly run Word and fight with their printers and don't understand email how can they understand what P2P is or how it works? Let alone know enough to enforce any rules. Removing young people from a computer with a net connection can be very challenging.
I hope someone does a study on the age of the average downloader/uploader. I am sure some interesting stats would come out.
I DIDN'T BUY THE $699 LISCENCE, i'm sorry!
And people wonder why i'm not a freaking liberal. Just like any politician, its all "We promise X, We promise Y." Post Election.... X and Y never happen.
Our government wonders why the 18-25 voting range has such low turn out: It's because we are young, cynical and have lost faith in the way that our political system is supposed to work. No one wants to vote, because there are no good parties to vote for. (Well, for me, the closest i go for is NDP). Now that Paul has decided to take away our electronic freedoms, i wonder how much longer the liberal party will stay in power. My best bet: Until all the older voters die. Best be pumping money into health care Mr.Martin, because your best voting base is dying.
Paul Martin is a FINK
Tragek
Not exactly. From my understanding, US Law allows for a 3% royalty payment on digital audio medium, which are such things as DATs and CD-R-Audio... not the regular CD-Rs that can be used for data or audio.
In Canada, we pay a much higher fee, $0.21 on each CD-R and $0.77 on each CD-R-Audio. So, on a 10-pack of CDs for $10, we pay an additional 21% for the levy.
Dave
FPGA, Wireless, ASIC, Verilog, VHDL, HW, 10yr exp, Team Lead, Ottawa (More? Email above. slashdotusername=dgmartin98 )
I seriously hope they do not get elected, or get a minority gov't at the most. Martin is promising everything to everyone and like all politicians he will only honor what helps him and his party. This is the same group of people that brought in the media levy that lines the pockets of big selling acts and does nothing for the people it says it's supposed to help.
No postage required. (If your letter prominately states that it is going to an MP, no postage is required)
Parliment just says that. The post office will through your letter out, and they'll have one less citizen's opinion to deal with.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
And the shits that allow only the Liberal point of view in the media here.
Here is me thinking that the liberals may believe they will be re-elected, but many other people are not so sure. Knee jerk pandering to the recording industry is demonstrates how far out this government really is. The next thing you know sending Canadian troops to Iraq will be a "good thing".
--- That's a deguassing idea!
Anybody can tell us how much money is going to the artist from the total CD sales price? Including taxes, indeed! I think there is so much people making money from the artist they just don't want this gold mine going away from them.
Internet is a great mean to distribute cultural products. However, doing so, is short-circuiting the other well controlled distribution channels. And this is that control majors want to held. Copyright is just bullshit in this context to convince other to let you control the media.
As a simple example, last week-end, a well-known band in Quebec was in Paris, France for a show. Their CDs are not distributed at all anywhere in Europe. They performed before a mostly european public which was knowing their songs and were able so sing them with the band. Of course, it was a big surprise and big party. There was even a well structured fan-club.
How can this happen? Were all these files shared for the stake of the group?
Achille Talon
Hop!
Perhaps what artists need then is something along the lines of a garagegames for musicians... a low-cost, high royalty method of publishing music over the internet. Perhaps for a small fee they could do some professional mixing on tracks you submit, and publish them via their portal (and idealy other online music stores aswell).
They were never a party of rednecks. This was pure Liberal propaganda, for which you seem to have fallen.
A lot of Canadians fail to realise that the implementation of the "makee available" provisions of Article 6 the WIPO treaty could limit their ability to share files (ie. leaving them in a shared folder).
Below is the letter sent to Ms. Scherrer and copied to my Member of Parliament as well:
"I can imagine someone installing Kazaa for some random legal purpose, then deciding to store all their own legally ripped music in the directory Kazaa conveniently made for them."
Add to this the fact that Kazaa, as well as numerous others, actually encourage this by providing a player that automatically lists any audio in that shared directory. If a user isn't familiar with winamp or other players, Kazaa would do just fine.
"If the sale of a fifteen dollar album currently earns the artists about two cents, then that is a very sad situation, and it means that the music execs are the ones screwing the artists over, not those downloading MP3 tracks."
About 2 cents per album huh?
Anyone know of a bank that'll let me write checks for less than a penny? I owe an artist some money.
No, they'll continue to protect them. Cancon, and other various facets of her 'office' ensure that will continue long after she's been removed from the 'heritige' minister position.
This can be seen in a standing with other government protected businesses up here, it makes me wonder how much the Liberal party is getting for a kick-back, with the corruption bit going on now...it's not that much of a strech to see them taking bribes.
It's pretty much business as usual for the Liberals in Ottawa. Either throw money at it, pretend it doesn't exist, or rewrite the laws to suit your agenda and claim your protecting 'sovereignty'.
Om, nomnomnom...
Is there some way to see who donates to political candidates in canada?
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
Canadian people Promise to Fix Federal Heritage Minister real soon now :-)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
That only applies in some countries. In, er, civilised countries, the advertised price includes tax.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
***
Good day Helene Scherrer,
A recent report has quoted you (Helene Scherrer) as saying that Canadian copyright law would be changed to make the download of copyrighted material illegal.
I strongly urge your ministry's to reconsider any proposed changes to Canadian copyright law.
As the law stands today it strikes a perfect balance between the protection of intellectual rights and the rights of individuals to access the intellectual property of others.
In the recent court decision by Justice Konrad von Finckenstein, he compared P2P (peer to peer) file sharing to a photocopier in a public library. I believe that his analogy is 100% correct. Technology itself does not encourage or imply the right to copy material that is protected. The Canadian supreme court has also ruled recently that simply providing the means to create an illegal copy is not an infringement. Please understand that the internet is simply a collection of technologies.
It is clear that the law must protect the rights of content producers, but not at the expense of depriving Canadians access to the knowledge and the whole body of intellectual work.
The concept of fair use is not new to Canadian copyright law. Part VIII paragraph/section 80 of the current Copyright act clearly outlines what constitutes copyright infringement and what does not (when dealing with music). To make a change to the act that is contrary to this section removes the protection of fair use. It is a slippery slope. Changes to the act, if not carefully worded, could result in a society where the intellectual property rights outweigh the rights of individuals to access information. This goes against the spirit of Copyright law. It is also goes against the spirit of shared knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge.
I believe it is the job of government to protect the common good; and to protect the rights of Canadians to pursue knowledge and to use that knowledge to become productive members of society. I also believe that the current Canadian Copyright Act does this while at the same time protects intellectual property rights.
It is not the job of government to protect corporate interests at the expense of individual Canadian's rights.
If you believe in a society that encourages the acquisition of knowledge you must think twice before before amending the copyright act.
One must ask - if something is not broken, then why fix it?
(sign your name)
***
A copy of this letter can also be found here.
sparky
Do you think the Conservatives would be any less inclined to "fix" copyright law? This is the party that went through with NAFTA after all.
The liberals are the last party you want voted out if you want copyright law to remain the way it is.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
To share or not to share, that is the question.
There is no doubt that the programmers and other supporting personnel do need to make money from their talents. For this to happen, people have to buy their software. But when people share software collections on P2P services, the artistes are, without doubt, robbed of their fruits of labour.
However, at the same time, it must be noted that more c90% of proceedings from program sales go to the management. P2P sharing hits more the big software companies than the actual programmers.
A P2P system where the programmers get paid per program would be an ideal solution.
#---End of Output
hmm..that doesn't look entirely correct to me.
Time for a naive rant:
Maybe artists could give away their music for free and make a living supporting them. *j/k*
Or maybe artits could be set up like charities. If you want to support the artist then send them a check, or food, or something. If you have time or equipment you could donate it. Or not.
The fact is that one person may get more enjoyment out of listening to a song than another person -- so how fair is it to charge them the same amount. If you let the customers pick the price, then you find the true value of what you're selling -- unless they're evil uncaring/unthinking bastards (business majors). If the music isn't important enough to you that you want to hear more then you won't support it. Likewise if you want to hear more, then you will probably do what you can to insure that they continue making music (as a sort of modern plebian-Patron D'Artes).
Ok slashbots tell me how wrong my naive and completely unthought out rant was
Funny how all the comments to this article are negative towards the Canadian government. Where as in the previous article all the comments were like "Hooray for Canada", "Dont you wish you lived in Canada?", etc.
Let this be a lesson to you. No government is going to put it's citizens ahead of business. You personally don't give enough money to their campaigns. Looks like you all were downloading your MP3s before they hatched.
I am disappointed and disgusted (but not shocked) by the statement by Federal Heritage Minister Helene Scherre that she will "as quickly as possible, make changes to our copyright law." This is just another classic example of politicians being swayed through pressure from corporations to do their bidding, rather than protecting the rights of the citizens they were elected to represent. The music industry has claimed to be losing money over the last few years, and say that the cause is the internet and file-swapping. This is, in reality nothing but an opportunistic scapegoat for their failing business model. The real reason they have lost money is that the economy is weaker now compared to the one from 5 years ago. They have also lost money through bad investments in musicians that have not profited. So, of course when comparing todays market to a booming market, it seems plausible that filesharing could be the reason, but it is in fact due to their inability and lack of interest in adapting. They view filesharing as a threat and are using this as a tactic to cajole politicians into reforms to the copyright law to squash filesharing and in the process relieve the music industry of the need to change the way it does business. I am nothing less than disgusted that our politicians are bending over backwards for an industry that refuses to change its business model and instead infringe on my privacy and rights as a Canadian citizen. Even the RCMP can't spy on me as easily as the music industry is permitted to. This is clearly unacceptable. We as Canadians, need to stand up for our rights, contact our elected representatives, and demand that our rights take priority over the minority of people in this country that are affected by the music industry's unwillingness to change. Did our politicians make reforms when Nortel lost money because of their mistakes? No, so why should they for the music industry? One thing is for certain, I'm am NEVER going to give my money to an industry that chooses to terrorize me, spy on me, and invade my privacy and rights in their pursuit of a profit. This is one less customer for LIFE.
Does anyone have links to the various studies done that show that filesharing doesn't overwhemlingly hurt CD sales?
I want to write a letter but I want some hard facts behind it as well.
Thanks !
There are about three good ideas out of the commandments; don't kill, don't steal, and be true to your spouse.
Well, they are good ideas, but I can easily think of exceptions to all but the last.
There are times when a killing is justified. I would steal if it would save the life of a child. These examples go toward the subjectivity of morality. I wish it were not so - I really do. I have spent much effort in searching for reality and truth, but can only come to the conclusion that it is subjective. Once again, that rubs me the wrong way, in a big way, but it is the only logical conclusion I can come up with. What is holy for one man, may be a sin for another, given the circumstances.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/washpost/ 20040330/tc_washpost/a34300_2004mar29
And if this isn't wierd enough, using the preview, the click through works, but yet even slashdot re-parses the displayed text and if you highlight the text, it has the space in it again... a bug somewhere?
Out of curiosity, what countries include the tax in the advertised price? I can't think of any stores that do that here in Canada.
It's mandatory in Norway to list the after sales tax prices, if you list the before sales tax price. If you only list one price, then that must be the after sales tax price. That ensures that stores don't try to defraud it's customers with sales tax trickery.
defraud it's customers with sales tax trickery.
What do you mean defraud with trickery? In Canada, it is perfectly ordinary (in fact, expected) that you will be paying more than the advertised price, because tax is added on at the cash register.
It really bugs me when you pay $1.06 for something that's $0.99.
Most of those not in north america. It was a big shock to me, having lived in the UK that when the item was marked at $1 that wasn't the amount you needed to pay.
ustr: Managed string API with ave. 44% overhead over strdup(), for 0-20B
but you are talking to someone who doesn't know the difference between the queen and the queen mum, but if i think deeply about it, i am led to believe the queen mum is actually the queen's mom
;-P
so now i feel somewhat soiled by my growing knowledge of the british monarchy, and my loss of innocence on petty minutiae of people who are little more than cute nationalistic mascots for some other country that if the world were right, neither canadians nor americans would give a hoot about
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I know the feeling.
I visited the UK a few summers ago, and I was browsing around inside a "pound store", where all of the products were priced at 1 GBP. Imagine my surprise when everything did really cost only one pound. =)
In the US it is 2% or a min of $1 on things like DAT and Audio CDs and its a min of $3.00 or 3% on audio recorders.
The fees are actually higher in the US on paper and the AHRA is unclear on what noncomercial consumer infringement is (Section 1008). The DMCA seems to trump the no bans on digital recorders though and is largly ignored by those who want to push DRM and copy control methods on CDs.
You are correct that the Data Disks and Computer burners are not covered in the US. This is becuase the US Computer Industry fought tooth and nail to make sure they were distinguished as different from Audio CDs.
$1 PER Audio CD !?
FPGA, Wireless, ASIC, Verilog, VHDL, HW, 10yr exp, Team Lead, Ottawa (More? Email above. slashdotusername=dgmartin98 )
Here in Norway everyone expects the price presented to be including all taxes. It is the cost for you as a consumer which interests you, so why would you want to know any other price at all?
Try not including taxes in your advertised prices, and you probably will be accused of fraud or misinformation. Unless it is specificly noted that the prices are untaxed, which still is an unusual practice here anyway.
I have seen this practice (w/taxes) in every single country I have visited in Europe (Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France and Holland). I admit freely I haven't been traveling alot, but I have yet to see a country where the norm is to announce prices wo/taxes. Too me, that's just plain stupid and misleading.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Oh, what georgious pessismism. I, like many others, have totally lost faith in politics. However, I allways get the to hear that "If I don't vote, I'm not entitled to complain". Bullshit.
I like to call myself a free person. I respect just laws, and I break those laws which I can't find any reasonable justification for. As I don't cause any harm to others by this (I am after all, quite a nice guy), this haven't lead to any problems so far.
Ignore the law as much as you want. Then you are truly free. Just be discrete and don't make hell for others. And your freedom will go unnoticed.
When the revolution comes... *drool*
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Heck, there are plenty of RIAA lobbyists inside the beltway who'd be happy to make this happen.
We'll tell the public that downloaded music can be used by evil-doers for anti-national-security aims.