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Canadian Music Stars Fight Against DRM
An anonymous reader writes "Some of Canada's best known musicians, including Avril Lavigne, Sarah
McLachlin, Sum 41, and Barenaked Ladies, have formed a new copyright coalition.
The artists say in a press
release that they oppose file sharing lawsuits, the use of DRM, and
DMCA-style legislation and that they want record labels to stop
claiming that they represent their views."
Nothing gets me hotter then listening to 'The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgeral' sung by Bryan Adams.
yikes.
Gordon Lightfoot did the worse thing for his song that anyone could do. He bequethed it to the famil members of the men that dies.
So now to get permission to use it, you half to tlak to dozens of people abut the worse day of their lives. Effectivly locking it up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What the artists think is totally irrelevant in Canada. Downloading copyrighted music is completely legal here (for now).
(Not to mention justified since consumers here pay a "pirate-tax" on all blank CD purchases, effectively paying for the music they might potentially "steal")
Here's what these artists are saying...
On DRM: "Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice."
On P2P file sharing: "Fans who share music are not thieves or pirates. Sharing music has been happening for decades."
On DMCA "the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act is one of the world's most draconian pieces of intellectual-property law."
On Lawsuits: "Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical. We do not want to sue our fans. The labels have been suing our fans against our will, and laws enabling these suits cannot be justified in our names."
Members include: Sum 41, Blue Rodeo, Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Our Lady Peace and Sloan to name a few.
I don't know about the other artists but BNL's contract with Reprise Records expired in 2003. Technically they're independent (again), although the records are still being distributed by Warner.
And there's no sign of DRM on 2004's Barenaked For The Holidays. That's the album that was re-released on a USB key full of DRM unencumbered (but still lossy) MP3s last year...
Or you could have gone to https://www.werkshop.com/sarahmp3/index.jsp where you can purchase a few of her cds in mp3 or flac format and avoided DRM altogether.
Shows how much you know. Avril Lavigne didn't even release her first album until 2002...
From this article. I remember reading this in the Toronto Star as well, which I haven't forgotten since:
The Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson also wades in with, "I'm totally fine with people downloading music, as long as they steal everything that they want. If you want pants, go steal them. If you need gas in your car, you should steal it, because you can. As long as people are consistent I don't have a problem. As long as they see themselves as thieves in general then I don't mind if they steal everything that they like. But it irks me that it's only okay to steal music."
So at least one of them is against sharing/downloading.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
ARTIST: Barenaked Ladies
TITLE: If I Had a Million Dollars
If I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
Well, I'd buy you a house - I would buy you a house
And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
I'd buy you furniture for your house - maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman
And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
Well, I'd buy you a K-Car - a nice Reliant automobile
And if I had a million dollars I'd buy your love
If I had a million dollars
I'd build a tree fort in our yard
If I had a million dollars
You could help, it wouldn't be that hard
If I had a million dollars
Maybe we could put like a little tiny fridge in there somewhere
You know, we could just go up there and hang out. Like open the fridge and stuff. There would already be foods laid out for us, like little pre-wrapped sausages and things, mmm. They have pre-wrapped sausages but they don't have pre-wrapped bacon. Well, can you blame 'em? Uh, yeah!
If I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
Well, I'd buy you a fur coat - but not a real fur coat, that's cruel
And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
Well, I'd buy you an exotic pet - yep, like a llama or an emu
And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
Well, I'd buy you John Merrick's remains - ooh, all them crazy elephant bones
And if I had a million dollars I'd buy your love
If I had a million dollars
We wouldn't have to walk to the store
If I had a million dollars
We'd take a limousine 'cause it costs more
If I had a million dollars
We wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner
But we would eat Kraft Dinner. Of course we would, we'd just eat more. And buy really expensive ketchups with it. That's right, all the fanciest Dijon ketchups! Mmm. Mmm-hmm.
If I had a million dollars - If I had a million dollars
Well, I'd buy you a green dress - but not a real green dress, that's cruel
And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
Well, I'd buy you some art - a Picasso or a Garfunkel
If I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
Well, I'd buy you a monkey - haven't you always wanted a monkey
If I had a million dollars I'd buy your love
If I had a million dollars, if I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars, if I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars, I'd be rich
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
actually your are not correct. Canadians own more guns per capita than people from the US. Bring it on!
when in doubt press enter and we'll figure it out later..
yeah, just because the artists hate drm, doesn't mean they don't have to use it. i sent a nasty email to the trews, another canadian band, complaining about their new cd having mediamax. they sent me back a nice letter saying that they were just as pissed off about it as i was, and there was nothing they could do. sony put the drm on the cd at the last minute without telling them, and they had no say in the matter.
Canada has more long guns (e.g. hunting rifles), not handguns. It's a sleight of hand that NRA members trot out from time to time to make it seem that Canada is full of Uzi submachine guns and Colt .45s.
You can optimize that;
addDRM(music);
switch (whatHappensAfter) {
case "piracy goes down":
println("See?! We TOLD you the evil pirates were stealing! DRM works!");
break;
case "piracy goes up":
println("Ahh! They're stealing more to spite us! This is war!");
break;
case "piracy stays the same":
println("Those filthy pirates will steal no matter what we do! We must make the DRM stronger!");
break;
}
addMoreDRM(music,movies,television,software);
money++;
Oh well, what the hell...
Seems like the usual suspects fighting on the side of consumer rights again. This isn't the first time the growing artistic community around Nettwerk Music Group has attempted to make an impact, even the Nettwerk CEO saying "Litigation is destructive, it must stop .... as per Nettwerk copyrights, we have never sued anybody and all our music is open source to encourage fans to share it with others and help us promote our Artists. As per those Artists we manage on other labels (Majors), we take issue with those labels claiming that litigating our fans is in our interest, as it clearly is not."
None of the major labels would dare utter sacrilege like this. But to be fair, in Canada even the Recording Industry Association (CRIA) is not as virulent as it's ugly cousin to the south. They moderate their message somewhat with more honesty, for example recently releaseing a study showing:
CRIA's own research now concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders' computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services.
(words of Prof. Michael Geist, University of Ottawa)
I do believe you mean Québécois. And you missed the bilingual pun.
HTH. HAND.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
As a previous poster already pointed out, Nettwerk's own Werkshop sells unencumbered MP3s for $0.99 per track, or $9.99 per album. Lossless FLACs are also available for $10.99 per album and, in some cases, $1.09 per track.
They also sell the Canadian, Nettwerk releases of her CDs, which carry no DRM.
On a side note, Kraft dinners have many attributes, but tasting good isn't one of them. Mind you, they can serve as great thermal insulator for your garage.
Well, I'd expect that when some of the biggest names in Canadian music speak, the Ministry of Canadian Heritage might just listen. They're about to embark on another attempt to come up with a somewhat less objectionable version of the DMCA, spurred on by lobbyists from the big American record labels.
This isn't about convincing the labels. It'sz about ensuring that the government hears the other viewpoint.
And noting one thing. (I was shown by a tech friend over there) that the locally pirated copies of DVD's and CD's for sale were DRM protected using the exact same protection as the original. You see when you do a bit for bit copy you get an exact copy. DRM only prevents fair use it doesn't even come close to slowing down the back alley black market.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
How is this not just a publicity stunt? If they have so many artists, they should start their own label.
Yeah that's a good idea... these people Sarah McLaghlan, the Barenaked Ladies, and others could start a label and call it Nettwerk or something. Except it seems like some other chick names Sarah McLachlan and some other band called the Barenaked Ladies already did.
In many cases, the DRM will NOT do as intended. Those who wished to download the music or rip it and share it will still find some way to do so, and a considerable number won't buy it if it has the more restrictive forms of DRM on.
So where does it have the intended effect again?
Public performing rights are a part of the publishing rights. Record companies do not generally hold those, but hold instead what are known as mechanical rights. You really have no idea what your talking about if you're contending that performance rights aren't a subset of the publisher's rights.
." Let me start over. If you're drunk off your ass and mangling a song in a karaoke bar, it's covered by such a blanket license that the karaoke bar has taken out. Otherwise, you personally would probably owe the songwriter/publisher of the song you just destroyed (assuming they could even recognize it.
Overwhelmingly, performance rights are covered by venues licensing repertory catalogs from publishers such as ASCAP. If you are in a band, and you do cover tunes at the local club, it's covered by such a blanket license that the club has taken out. Actually, you know so little about the subject that I think it's a stretch to say, "If you are in a band . .
I've had this explained to me on a number of occasions by people who work in entertainment law. I've tried to re-smart you by passing on the info, but if you insist on being retarded, that's your call.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Any reason they couldn't ask Apple to remove the DRM on their own music?
Yep, the same reason that you can't legally copy that music for your friends. Although you bought the music, you don't own it. And NEITHER DO THEY.
The labels do. That's why they are protesting against the labels.
here
:-)
I am already here
Plenty of major artists have been pro-downloading long before this group came along. A member of Switchfoot posted instruction on the band's message board describing how to circumvent the DRM scheme on their latest cd. The post was removed by Sony, but the cd was eventually recalled and published DRM free, because the copy protection scheme did not work properly. The Offspring were avid supporters of napster back when it was the big p2p network, and they joked about making their entire album available for download on their website before it was released in stores, which horrified their label at the time. This isn't the first time a major artist has taken the side of the consumer.
The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Stars, Feist, Most Serene Republic, Tapes N Tapes, Rufus Wainwright, Metric, The New Pornographers, Destroyer, Belle Orchestre, The Unicorns, Wolf Parade, Islands, The Stills, Death From Above 1979...
I personally think Canada seems to be producing more interesting music than both America and the UK at the moment, you've just got to know where to look.