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Canadian Music Industry Says Downloading Declining
An anonymous reader writes "A new survey conducted by a Canadian music collective that counts the recording industry as one of its members has found that music downloading has declined dramatically in Canada. The survey found that only 14 percent of Canadians download, down from 21 percent in 2002. The survey also found that P2P is rarely a reason for people who purchase less music."
The Canadians have internet?
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
Though downloading may or may not be declining here in Canada, what do you think the chances are of them reducing or eliminating the blank media tax?
Once you download everything you need, why download any more? Once you've downloaded the good stuff, it is not like there is anything new coming out to make you want to keep downloading more and more.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Because I have downloaded all music known to man, I no longer need to pursue this.
Posting anon for obvious reasons.
I love music, I have a huge CD Collection, but recently I have not been purchasing too many CDs. This last couple of months I bought 3 CDs. The new Barenaked Ladies CD, the new Blue Rodeo Album, and a classic Bruce Springsteen album. Well... The new barenaked ladies I listed to once, and put away. Same with the Blue Rodeo Album (not a good effort Mr. Cuddy). The classic Bruce Springsteen was just great. I can point to several CDs by the Barenaked Ladies and Blue Rodeo that were incredibly. So why would I buy CDs that I'm going to listen to once? I'm just going to continue to listen to the albums published years ago that were great, and are still great. As for the new stuff, I'm going to listen to it on the radio, and in the unlikely event that some great music appears, I will buy it. That is why music sales are down, I think, people just are getting tired of crap. I hate to say it, but from a Canadian perspective, Canadian Content should be more concerned with the content than the Canadian.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
"what do you think the chances are of them reducing or eliminating the blank media tax?"
My subject line is only quoting the idiots who are going to come along and say that the Canadian CD tax is not a tax, but it is actually a "levy" (which is defined, of course, as a type of tax). Maybe they will read this, and troll no more.
Where were you when the voynix came?
It could also be that people are far less inclined to admit they download files or use peer-to-peer services, what with the entertainment industry's litigious proclivities and whatnot.
OBVIOUSLY!
We know the truth about those dirty pirates STEALING all of the poor artists.
After all, our sales are down, and the ONLY possible explenation is that people are STEALING our^W The Artists' hard work!
Please, won't SOMEONE think of the Artists?
Thank you,
The MPAA
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
1-We Canadians, already downloaded all the American music. 2-ISPs not getting cheaper in Canada and people switching to cheaper plans 3-Related to 1, people become crazy.
With the availability of large external storage, did anybody talk about sharing? You don't need to download something when you can go over to your friends' house and leave with a copy of it.
A Recent survey of Canadians showed that Canadians are 75% more likely to lie on an over-the-phone survey than they were 10 years ago. Studies suggest that this has to do with the common practice of entering bogus information online to protect personal privacy.
And before anyone moderates this informative, it was meant to be either funny or thought provoking :P
We are too busy making plans to invade our southern neighbor. Beware us!!!
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
The article does not tell us anything about the survey methods that they used. Did they use the same survey as reported from earlier data? Differences in survey design can have huge consequences on the outcome and may make comparisons moot.
Also, people might be more likely to say they are not downloading music when, in fact, they are downloading as much or more. The fear of recrimination for admitting to downloading may be pushing people to simply be dishonest when surveyed.
But I see how the poll questions could result in it appearing that way.
... but I don't see that as being the case.
When they do these polls, they typically call a house. My wife or I might respond to a request like this, my 13 year-old-daughter never would.
In the last year, my downloading has dropped off the map - Got satilite (sp bad I know) radio in both vehicles, so despite having grotequely bad local radio in my city, I hear lots of new stuff in my primary "place of listening". Don't need to download for that.
On the other hand, my daughter has gone from "never done it" to "nearly daily" in the last year as she's gotten into music, coupled with getting her own mp3 player, coupled with becoming savvy enough to find stuff she likes.
so, depending on how the survey questions were asked, and more importantly, who responded to those questions, I can easily see there being the appearance of a drop in downloading
Reason why there is hope for the future generation #364:
"I wish my grass was emo so it could cut itself."
So, this should (according to their logic) show as a very noticeable increased sales, right?
My other SIG is a Sauer.
Canadians didn't download less! We just got smarter: if we keep saying "yes, I download music from the net for free" all over the place, our government tax us. So now we keep it quiet :)
I may be incorrect here, but as I understood Canadian law pertaining to file sharing (granted, from /. not exactly a degree-granting institution), Canadians already pay a levy on all recordable media which is then passed on to the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA to reimburse artists. In addition, Canadian copyright law makes unauthorized distribution (uploading) illegal, however downloading is not. If this is true, and I cede that I may have this muddled, then Canadians should be downloading day and night from every source they can find! You're already paying for it, might as well take advantage of the legal loophole while it exists.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Damn, here is the link http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml
Does Netcraft confirm it?
obviously this shows that DRM and security measures are working. or that more people are lying out of their asses. or that a different group of people were surveyed.
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
Sure, and when you go to court to sue or be sued and the court garners your or the other persons wages, that's collected by the government too, but I bet you'd be rather hesitant to call that a tax. The point is that what is done with the money collected is not controlled by a the government. As such I don't think it can be called a tax, despite the fact the the government 'collects' it on behalf of another party. It all goes to the private interest group and THEY decide how it is distributed, or even IF it is distributed!
I have said some of the following points before, but feel they belong with this discussion, so will repeat the necessary ones.
.. or .. or .. get it? You can't stop them, and you're spending so much money trying that it is laughable. "Like watching a bunch of retards trying to hump a doorknob." Wisen-up and use that money for CD art and packages so enticing that downloading seems dumb rather than worth it.
Not all artists care if their music is downloaded. Many artists make the most from their live shows, so many want you to download away as long as you buy a ticket to the concert. Sure the record company might suffer a little, but they often screw the artists to begin with (Warner Bros vs Zappa comes to mind).
One good song does NOT make an entire album worth buying. If you suck but have a good song or two, or you're simply a one-hit-wonder, don't expect to sell a ton of records. People will most likely want to save their money for good ALBUMS while downloading your one good song. Want to sell a whole CD? Write worth-while stuff, you rehashed, tired, same-old-garbage dumbasses.
Make the CD worth owning in other ways, too. I think I may spend another $13.99 on a second copy of Beck's new "The Information" because a) the entire disc is excellent and the included DVD is great b) the stickers to create your own unique cover is genius.
If you prevent people from using Kazaa, they'll use limewire. If you prevent them from using limewire, they'll switch to bearshare. or shareaza. or iMesh, or morpheus, or
Most people I know can't stand the radio these days. Sitting through all those shitty songs and ads and talk for what? Most music is so devoid of any real content or originality now that people may as well use internet radio and p2p to get what they want rather than play russian-roulette with FM. Use that internet vehicle to promote the good new artists, and have ads that help generate revenue, or something. Get with it, you archaic imbeciles - people don't want the new band that sounds like Nickelback the third, but also aren't willing to sit through the overplayed garbage in the hopes a new, worthwhile band will have something played. It is difficult to discover new bands right now, and often the easiest way is through sites that have comparisons to other bands and genres. The chances of the radio Gods selecting something new that you'll like is slim, and then the chances that you haven't died of boredom while waiting for them to play it on top of that doesn't help the situation.
All in all, fighting the internet now is like fighting sliced bread. Bang rocks together, guys.
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77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
Apparently, today's music sucks so bad that it's not even worth downloading it for free.
In Wellington NZ, where I am from, the house I grew up in was never locked. I lived there until 18 and thought it was strange to lock the door, especially if someone is home. We wouldn't even lock it if we were going on holiday so that our neighbours could get in if they needed to (feed cats, get lawnmower + RCD, etc). It was commonplace for us to simply walk into each other's house as if it were ours.
For me, I'd much rather grow up like this, in a friendly neighbourhood, rather than lock my house knowing that my neighbours with guns can't get in. That's just me though.
The quality of recent releases may have nothing to do with the decline in downloads. The majority of release in any time frame have always been crap. The decline is probably due to the fact that people have finished downloading the older stuff that they liked. They are caught up, and only need to download the new stuff they like.
Actually uploading on P2P apps is also considered legal in Canada, this has been tested in court even.
Apologize for the two-post reply, had to look busy at work for few minutes.
5 0728.html
Court overtuns levy:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2005/07/28/ipodlevy0
Court refuses to require ISP's to turn over names:
http://www.out-law.com/page-5742
Why bother downloading when you can legally copy CDs you borrow from friends or public libraries? This is how I got more than the 5000 pieces of music I have, most of them copied from other CDs.
"Only sick music makes money today." -- Friedrich Nietzsche in 1888.
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
I agree that the number may well be accurate. At least one major ISP, Rogers, has installed software that seeks out P2P connections, and throttles them. My (cough) friends (cough) tell me that P2P downloads start up OK, but after a couple of minutes, the bit rate falls off to a trickle. A Rogers spokesperson said that "email, http, IM" were the priority services for their internet customers, and that "movies and video" were at the bottom. My friends that use Rogers tell me that P2P doesn't do very much for them.
What was once true, is no longer so
"However, if you and your 10,000 closest friends end up with copies of the artists song and the artist ends up with ZERO, NADA, begging for food on the street corner when they should have rightfully had at least a few grand then something bad happened and all your weasel wording won't hide that fact."
....which has nothing at all to do with pointing out the cold, clear, and simple fact that copyright infringment and theft are different crimes.
You have to realize that there are a lot more crimes than just theft and that pointing out that a particular crime is not theft is not a justification for that crime. The only "weaseling" here is in calling copyright infringment "theft".
We can use your specific example of the "artist begging for food on the street corner". How can this happen? Copyright infringement is one way. Another way is a violent crime which leaves him severely disabled. Another way is arson (burning down his house and his bestseller novel inside). Why point these out? These are all crimes, which can result in what you describe. However, none of them is "theft".
"Artists *should* be compensated for new works by people who consume those new works"
Speaking of abusing words, I recall a major recording artist who said "If you are consuming my music, you are doing something wrong". Look up the definition of "consume" at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/consume There's no way you can consume music by listening to it in an MP3 player unless it has some sort of DRM which makes the song get "used up" after multiple listens. The only time I ever consumed music was when I played a modern LP in an old Victrola. The heavy needle made it a one-play-and-that's-all situation.
"You see it all the time- people do things wrong and rationalize it to themselves that it's not wrong and then they get in trouble because they lose proper caution."
"Put another way-- it's one thing to have a joint at a concert surrounded by 20,000 strangers and quite another to have one in the starbucks or casually walking down a major thoroughfare."
This is actually a sort of apt analogy, because smoking a joint is theft no less than copyright infringement is.
"I know that pro-infringers like to argue that and I've got just a few mp3's myself."
If pointing out that infringement is not theft makes one "pro-infringement", I have a question. Is murder the same as theft? If you deny it, that makes you pro-murder!!!!
Where were you when the voynix came?
Actually, since this is about Canada, it'd be the CRIA's turf :)
To my knowlege the following is true:
Downloading is perfectly legal.
Uploading is perfecttly legal.
However distributing (that is actively or passively) to multiple parties is a more sketchy ground. I wouldn't call it legal anyway.
The big differance is how the two legal systems (Canada vs the USA) are set up to allow for the proscutions of such offences. In the USA I hear what happens is the RIAA initially sues a "John Doe" on an ISP from a particular state that allows this. The whole point of this, is to force the ISP to reveal their user lists. Once the RIAA gets this list and thus a name, they drop all charges with "John Doe". It is at this point they start a new charge in the state and against the named individual. This is the point where people get a letter to extort, erm, I mean settle out of court, as most do.
This tatic does not work in Canada. In Canada you can't sue some fictional person. You actually have to sue a person. The Canadian version of the RIAA has repeadedly tried to force the ISP's to disclose their user lists, so they can get to a suein'. However as much as I hate the Bell's and Rogers's of the world due to their monoloplistic tendancies, and brutal customer service, it is at this point that I must applaud. As both bell and rogers has told the CRIA (or whatever it is called) to go to hell, as have the courts. The privacy laws in Canada will not allow it. If there is a criminal case and evidence then for sure the courts can force the ISP to disclose a name, but you can't go and sue 5000 John Doe's here.
So while sueing Americans is actually profitable, sueing Canadians would not be, as they would have to do due process on each individual BEFORE the extortion letters go out. Whereas in the USA, they only have to do that on those that refuse to pay up. Nice eh?
Currently it seems that the CRIA has changed their tatics, and are instead trying to lobby to try and change laws or implement new ones through bribing, erm, I mean contribuiting illegally (by illegally I mean in Canada there is a cap to how much a individual can donate to a political party. However I have heard of accounts where an individual will max out, as will their spouse, and their 3 children, including a baby that is 6 months old. While technically this might, and I stress might as I don't know, might be legal, it certainly isn't ethical, or holding to the sperit of the law) to copyright "friendly" political canidates... Which is pretty damn dirty pool if you ask me.
Anyway as mentioned by the parent we all pay an invisible media tax (never mind you might use said media to back up your data files), that goes to a pot that the CRIA controls. I have no idea if a single cent has made it to Sloan and other music folks, though it wouldn't surprise me a whole lot if I learned that some portion or even a large portion goes to the "administration" of the CRIA, and ultimaly to copyright "friendly" dinners and such.
Anyway this somehow turned into a big rant, so sorry.
I thought i'd add -- in case everyone didn't already know, that this phenomenon is pretty much responsible for the "ZOMG decline in sales!!11 Piracy!!!1"
See the decline in sales was due to people finishing their cassette-to-CD upgrade and no longer buying the huge amount of CDs they bought in the mid 90s.
I guess it'd be nice if people finish their CD-to-mp3 "up"grade and the RIAA could stop doing their chicken little act.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
They need to tack another A onto their name to make it more clear that we are supposed to hate them.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
We're just waiting for Bryan Adams and Celine Dion to put out new albums.
...one person responded to the question, "do you download music?"
The answer was, "no."
To the question, "have you bought any music?" the answer was, "no"
To the question, "why?" the answer was, "because there's nothing worth buying or downloading."
This poll has a margin of error or 50%.
Thank you all!
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
i mean seriously....i need my warez at at least 50k or i'm not happy