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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."
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.
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.
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.
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..
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.