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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
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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...
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.
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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.
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.
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'
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?
This is very bizarre, isn't it. In my country, alcohol is treated in this way: artificially high taxes (meant, in this case, to keep consumption down - for national health reasons, they say), and laws against making your own (for the same reasons, manage consumption).
Ok, the analogy might not be perfect - but shall we treat music as a barely legal drug?
668.5
Haven't you ever heard of price fixing? This should be something along the same lines ;)
From the beginning of CD times, the price to manufacture a CD record has gone down all the time. Yet I haven't witnessed a single price drop in CD prices. Somehow the laws of supply and demand don't work in the record industry and I fail to see how this is not a monopoly/cartel. Think about it: Same companies all over the world. About the same price levels everywhere, regardless of record company or country.
Yes, I do believe politicians are indeed "fixing" things for the record industry. What else is new? Recording industry is just too powerful. The real question is what to do about it. My ignorant answer is that bands should become independent entreprenours and forget about the record companies altogether. 100% is a lot more than 5% or 10% even if you lower your prices a bit. I don't know what the current percentage of profits for the bands is but I do believe some the OSS principles could be applied to the music industry and the rest would be pretty simple to work out with common sense. Or then I'm puffing on the wrong ciggie again.
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
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.
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