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Canadian Minister Promises to Fix Copyright Law

Posted by michael on from the doh dept.

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.'"

19 of 569 comments (clear)

  1. CDR Tax by Alternate+Interior · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So does that mean the CD-R Tax disappears?

    /not canadian

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    1. Re:CDR Tax by Barbarian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Of course it won't.

    2. Re:CDR Tax by epiphani · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

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  2. And this is why voting is important by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even for Canadians.

  3. Ah, good. by trudyscousin · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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    Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
  4. If you're in Canada (like me) reminder her... by barc0001 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

    1. Re:If you're in Canada (like me) reminder her... by Ubernurd · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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?

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    2. Re:If you're in Canada (like me) reminder her... by Ubernurd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

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  5. Malcolm has the right idea by silvaran · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Malcolm has the right idea by Kierthos · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

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  6. Gee... by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Gee... by Phekko · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

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  7. No power. by g-to-the-o-to-the-g · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    1. Re:No power. by janbjurstrom · · Score: 5, Interesting
      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?

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  8. Re:WTF???? by Barbarian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  9. If you can't win in court by Gribflex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Buy off a minister to change the laws for you.

  10. Just proves that.. by dj245 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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...

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  11. Re:WTF???? by pla · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  12. Catch 22: Release 2.0 by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...