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.'"

Comments

CDR Tax

[Alternate Interior]

So does that mean the CD-R Tax disappears?

/not canadian

Re:CDR Tax

[Barbarian]

Of course it won't.

Re:CDR Tax

[epiphani]

Why exactly is this rated +4 Funny? In canada, we pay a levy (not a tax, theres a difference) on our blank media that goes towards those music industries whiners. If they plan on making Copyright law such that Downloading becomes illegal, then fuck me paying extra for the CDs that I use for lagitimate uses.

And this is why voting is important

[Anonymous Coward]

Even for Canadians.

Re:And this is why voting is important

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea how many seats the liberals hold outside of Ontario and Quebec? Not bloody many! There hasn't been a liberal elected in Calgary since Trudeau's NEP, and precious few in Alberta. Trudeau dies and we have to listen to a bunch of eastern bastards moaning about what a saint he was. Those same eastern bastards elected the corrupt twits who are pork barelling their way to another election. Heck, out here we even get the election results before we've had a chance to vote! You have no idea how important your right to vote feels when everything is decided before you get a chance to vote! Don't talk to us about the importance of voting! We'll vote for anyone *but* the liberals yet again, and guess who'll wind up running the show yet again?

Man, I really hope the western separation thing takes off. If you thought keeping Quebec in the country was a tough sell, man you have another thought coming. Sooner or later people out west are going to realize that the benefits of confederation all flow one way, and that's the same way as the transfer payments! Quebec, by comparison, were the ones receiving our money. That's why they stayed.

Ah, good.

[trudyscousin]

My faith in human (read: political) nature has been restored!

If you're in Canada (like me) reminder her...

[barc0001]

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...

Re:If you're in Canada (like me) reminder her...

[Ubernurd]

Here's what I just told her:

Record labels and stores make most of the money from CD sales in stores while most musicians make their money from CD's and merchendise sold at the side of the stage at live events. Attendance is determined by the popularity of the band and without p2p filesharing, many Canadian bands wouldn't be as well known as they are. Canada is a sparsely populated landmass and it's expensive to tour. mp3's are the best way to reach the most people to boost attendance. So are you truly looking out for my best interests (I'm a Canadian musician with 3 Cd's in stores) or are you catering to the labels lobbying for legislation?

Re:If you're in Canada (like me) reminder her...

[Sven The Space Monke]

Or, if you want to let her know what you think personally, you can e-mail her here.

Re:If you're in Canada (like me) reminder her...

[Ubernurd]

Just an ammendment to clarify my views:

While I support p2p, I think there are consequences that people should be aware of. The record companies will lose money as a result of slashing prices to compete. This will lead to them representing fewer acts and those will be only the ones that are safe bets (the heavily produced Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Enrique Iglesias, etc) and less of the risky (read: interesting) ones. Diversity in record stores will suffer as p2p flourishes. If you want an actual packaged CD of a band that is more intertesting than the aforementioned acts, you're eventually going to have to actually go out to their show and buy it from them yourself. I personally think that's a great thing. Supporting live music, giving more money to musicians and less to distributors is all good in my books. If you're a proponent of p2p filesharing as I am, don't later whine that there's nothing good in the stores.

The battle rages

[ites]

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.

Malcolm has the right idea

[silvaran]

Fair enough. Some people download music, some people don't. But consider his quote:

"I think it's a challenge for the industry, to try and find a new way to survive."

This lends creedence to many a /.'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.

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.

Re:Malcolm has the right idea

[Kierthos]

If we're talking about someone making just over minimum wage working in a music store, yeah, that's a real job. If we're talking about the sound technicians who do the grunt work in the production of the music, yeah, that's a real job.

If we're talking about the corpulent assholes who sit at the top of the company, who actually make no music, who add nothing to the value of the CD, and who take the vast majority of the artist's record sale income, and yet whine about p2p (and the apparent loss of funds to such that makes them unable to purchase that ruby-encrusted crack pipe), then no, that's not a real job.

Kierthos

Gee...

[The Master Control P]

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.

Re:Gee...

[Phekko]

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.

No power.

[g-to-the-o-to-the-g]

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.

Re:No power.

[janbjurstrom]

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.

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?

Wow

[Zakabog]

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.

WTF????

[mark-t]

FTA:

Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled that the Canadian Recording Industry Association didn't prove file-sharing constituted copyright violation - and artists and producers have no legal right to sue those who swap files without paying.

Okay... copyright means that the author has the absolutely exclusive _rights_ to copy the work and others can only obtain _permission_ to copy the work by authorization from the copyright holder. Fair use, btw, is granted permission by the copyright act and the copyright holder has no choice but to implicitly grant that permission.

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.

Re:WTF????

[Barbarian]

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?


In the same world where a library can place a photocopier in the same room as books without getting sued. In fact, the judge in this case made that analogy and cited as precedent a case several weeks ago where a law library had been sued.

Re:WTF????

[pla]

So in what world is putting a file ... in a publicly shared folder for others to obtain _not_ a violation of the copyright act?

The actual ruling read more like an extreme interpretation of "plausible deniability". Basically, while we geeks might laugh at the idea of "accidentally" leaving files in a shared directory, the masses of computer users often really don't understand the difference between what makes the choice of where to keep their music legal or illegal. Additionally, as several of the RIAA's suits showed, some people believe that paying for Kazaa means they have paid for access to the music.

Sounds stupid? Sure, to us. But if the majority of people doing this honestly do not understand whether or not they have broken the law, the law becomes essentially unenforceable. As one possible Devil's Advocate situation, 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.


Downloading copyrighted materials may be perfectly legal in Canada (albeit unethical

Actually, I'd disagree about the "unethical". Canada has really quite high taxes on all blank recording media, a sort of "we assume you'll copy our stuff, so get your money in the blanks" approach to piracy. Thus, since the punishment comes built-in to the media itself (whether or not they use it to pirate music doesn't change the "tax"), you could reasonably call it perfectly moral to go ahead and commit a crime already paid for.

Sharing's legal, distribution ain't...

[LostCluster]

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?

If you can't win in court

[Gribflex]

Buy off a minister to change the laws for you.

Just proves that..

[dj245]

This just goes to prove that no matter where you go, the lobbiests own the polititians. It doesn't matter where you live or who you think you have control over. It doesn't even matter if your megaphone is really really loud. If a lobbiest organization has more money than your faction has voters, the lobbiest always wins. So what can you do? Buy a congressman. I say we all pitch in and buy a Wyoming senator. They're worth 1/100 of the senate, and the going rate on a senator is about $20,000, based on some of the stories that have been in the news lately of kickbacks senators send to companies who gave them really small amounts of money.

Just think, our very own Senator! Cash value 1/100 of senate...

My Letter to Ms. Scherrer

[Kwil]

Her email address: Scherrer.H@parl.gc.ca
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& u=/washpost/ 20040330/tc_washpost/a34300_2004mar29

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

Very true.

[TheLink]

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.

Willl she "fix" the parasitic record companies?

[Hamster Lover]

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.

Govts really give me the shits!!!

[cheekyboy]

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.

Re:Govts really give me the shits!!!

[Thomas Miconi]

You miss the point.

What the courts say is "given current laws, you can / can't do that".

If a government does not like the current state of the law, well, of course they change it ! That's part of their job !

Given this, the rest of your comment amounts essentially to "I'm not allowed to get everything I want for free ergo we live under a dictatorship."

Thomas Miconi

Catch 22: Release 2.0

[LostCluster]

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...

Re:Catch 22: Release 2.0

[multipartmixed]

> Why, pray tell, is the Judge so hell-bent on ignoring the obvious conclusion?

Maybe it was his IP number?

Calling Concerned Canucks

[nfotxn]

Helene Chalifour herself can be contacted at:

407 Confederation Building
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
Phone: (613) 995-4995
Fax: (613) 996-8292
Email: scherh@parl.gc.ca

The Canadian Heritage National Headquarters can be contacted at:

Canadian Heritage
25 Eddy Street
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 0M5
Tel.: (819) 997-0055
Toll-free: 1-866-811-0055
TTY/TDD: (819) 997-3123

Write them a letter and tell them that the country's copyright laws should be altered in favour of the rights of Canadian Citizens and not recording industry associations.

No. No. No. Snail Mail!

[Hal The Computer]

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)

E-mail is just as good

[Yogurt]

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.

http://www.pch.gc.ca/pc-ch/min/contacts/index_e. cf m

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