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."

Comments

Re:Tell that to Sam the Record Man

[sayfawa]

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.

Canadian subsidies

[MushMouth]

Don't forget that canada has a whole lot of controls to make sure that the canadian musician gets more airplay, and has more subsidies than they do in the US (The government will sponsor your tour, and the radio must play X% canadian music). Sadly due to the polarization of the US culture such grants can't really be given. I can already hear the howling from the bible belt if someone like Stephan Merritt received a subsidy for 69 Love Songs, let alone someone like Ludicris, or from San Francisco if Amy Grant were granted cash for one of her bible records.
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)....

• Arcade Fire (Currently HUGE, although not as canadian as they would like you to believe, as the main songwriter is from Texas, and they recorded their first record at his grandparents summer home in midcoast Maine, but they still qualify for subsidies)
• Broken Social Scene (also include many of their side projects other than those listed below)
• Feist (she is a part time member of above, and is currently selling out her US tour)
• New Pornographers (also members A.C. Newman, and Destroyer)
• Stars (big last summer)
• Metric (big last summer)
• The Dears
• Wolf Parade
• The Constantines
• Death From Above 1979
• Tegan and Sara
• Nickleback (while I don't know what they sound like, they do seem to be on HDNet all the time)
  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 No. 1?

[MikeHunt69]

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!

Re:Canada . .

[digidave]

Jean Chretien didn't punch anybody, he choked a protester.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/05/17/po litics.fights/index.html