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Putting Canadian Piracy in Perspective
An anonymous reader writes "Over the past year Slashdot has pointed to many industry claims and governmental pressure over Canada piracy issues. Canadian law prof Michael Geist has produced Putting Canadian 'Piracy' in Perspective, a video that demonstrates how the claims are hugely exaggerated. For example, it shows how despite the MPAA's claim of movie piracy, Canada was the industry's fastest growing market last year. Similarly, while the recording industry says Canada is the world's top P2P country, the data shows that the Canadian music industry is experiencing record gains and that most of the decline from the major labels is due to retail pricing pressures."
three doors down from Sam's either.
Sam the Record Man was bought out years ago before this downloading hysteria. If I remember correctly, it almost went out of business then, but changed hands instead. The form it existed in for the past several years was a watered down version with much less selection. The initial downfall was not because of downloading, legal or otherwise.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
It's all RIAA/MPAA-manufactured crap to convince shill politicians to pass pro-MPAA/RIAA laws. Here's a story published in Australia yesterday accusing it of the same thing:
l ike-us/2007/07/11/1183833529685.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-music/pirates-
China has the right idea. Keep a steamroller mothballed, ready to pull out for the bi-annual "Drive over some CDs" Show.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_c
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_c
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/19/hollywoods_c
Its actually a levy, not a tax. Tax implies a payment to the Government whereas a levy is a payment accepted by the government on behalf of a 3rd party. I know, its kinda dumb.
More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy
It's true! The tax is something like $0.21 a CD/DVD and I believe that portable music players like ipods are also taxed. The tax rakes in a huge amount of cash too, something in the neighborhood of $150 million a year. That's equivalent to roughly $5.00 a year per Canadian citizen. I also believe the amount they take in is quite a bit more than the estimated losses due to piracy, but I am not 100% sure on that...
Also the current crop of Canadian musical talent/popularity (not necessarily the same thing) is higher than it has been at any time since Rush, Loverboy, and Gordon Lightfoot stopped making records (at least south of the border, I don't know what is going on North of it, other than everyone likes The Tragically Hip and Sloan).
Some bands that have taken off in the past few years include, but are not limited by (mostly of the "indie" variety, and in SF will sell out at least a 1000 seat venue)....
On top of that there are another slew of bands quite popular up there, (they can actually make a living playing music) that rarely make it down here.
Canada is number 1 for piracy? Funny thing is, a couple of days ago the Australian media ran a story that ranks Britian 1st, Australia 2nd and the US is 3rd in online piracy. And I personally think that none of those countries could hold a candle to some of the eastern countries - china/thailand/etc. Maybe that's a new strategy!
Step 1 : Get the local media of each country to tell the people that they are the worst pirates in the world
Step 2 : ??
Step 3 : Profit!
See http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/news/c20032004fs-e.html for the list from copyright board of Canada.
Jean Chretien didn't punch anybody, he choked a protester.
o litics.fights/index.html
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/05/17/p
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.