CRIA Admits P2P Downloading Legal in Canada 106
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist is reporting that the Canadian Recording Industry Association — the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA — this week filed documents in Canadian court that seeks to kill the expansion of the levy on blank media to iPods since it fears that the system now legalizes peer-to-peer downloading of music in Canada. CRIA's President Graham Henderson argued in his affidavit that a recent decision from the Copyright Board of Canada 'broadens the scope of the private copying exception to avoid making illegal file sharers liable for infringement.'"
Re:You're still stealing from people (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You're still stealing from people (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is stealing from whom again?
The private copying levy [wikipedia.org] exists on the premise that people are paying to allow for certain types of private copying. The law excludes some activities (e.g., if you copied music from any source and then started selling it -- illegal), and allows others (e.g., if you borrowed a music CD from a friend and copied it for your own personal use -- legal). It still makes distribution of music illegal, and, yes, as far as I know, it doesn't cover software or DVDs.
It's my personal decision that even though it is legal in Canada to do some types of copying thanks to the private copying law and the CD levy, I still buy my music. Why? Because I think the levy deal sucks for the artists. They get hardly anything (even less than normal), and the agency involved in distributing the money can't properly account for what people actually buy (i.e. the popular artists are the only ones likely to see much).
But would I be on a firm legal grounds if I did decide to exercise the rights granted under the private copying law? Absolutely yes. I'm paying for it. So, shut up. It's the record companies that are being inconsistent here by lobbying for the levy in the first place, but still claiming that people making any kind of copy are "stealing" music. No, in many circumstances it is already paid for. In Canada, if Billy loans Jane a CD to copy it is NOT stealing, it is entirely legal.
Yup, but. (Score:5, Insightful)
Poetic Justice (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's just panic (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, it's a really silly idea that the incumbent group gets a government/taxpayer subsidy to make sure they stay in business, particularly when that group is nothing more than a middleman between the customer and supplier (musician). It's bad from the standpoint that it doesn't encourage efficiency in that middle layer and that stems from the fact that there is no competition.
But that aside, the government and middlemen decided they should get a subsidy in the form of a tax on blank records. That way everybody says "We all know what blanks are for, and that's to copy music, so we'll tax you and we don't have to sue people, etc etc". So everybody is happy. Music can be copied around, and while it's not perfect, it keeps the money going to enough place that the middlemen are happy because they get billions for doing nothing, and people are somewhat happy because everybody acknowledges that for the tax they get to copy music around.
Except the fly in the ointment is that less and less people actually burn to a CD. CD's are clumsy because of their limited capacity, and so people want to take 100, 1,000, and 10,000 songs with them. And it all goes onto a media where there's no tax. Worse, people are trading songs from all over the world via P2P there's no control over how quickly music gets copie,.. so the government in it's limited imagination says "no problem, we'll slap a tax on iPods and all is good". Except that it means the iPod levy, besides bringing less money proportionally to the record companies, also fully legitimizes P2P in Canada. To which the taxpayer says "Of course it does. You get your money, so you have to acknowledge that this is fine. At long last, the record companies (a.k.a. "the Middlemen") finally see the trap of their own doing. In accepting the fee all along they've legitimized the concept that non-profit copying is okay.
And since they've accepted the premise of "copying okay as long as we get money", they have no philosophical argument that P2P is wrong or hurts artists. And now the only thing we're arguing about is the price. From their standpoint, they feel they're owed $10,000 per iPod, except they know they would never get that. At most a few hundred. But even then, people would just come south and buy in the U.S.
So they've lost the argument in Canada. The only thing left is for them to crawl back into their hole and figure out how to make the musicians pay for all of this.
I find the way the Internet is slowly cutting up the record companies fascinating, and it will be interesting to see how they either adapt or die in the next decade. My bet is on "dying", but we'll see.
Re:Schizoid if I ever heard it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Given up reading slashdot have you?
"All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster."
Check the bottom of the pages....
I know what you are getting at, but if you use the net, with the laws as they currently stand, it is practically impossible to not download (in some fashion) copyrighted material. That is one of the big problems with the laws as they stand. Pretty much (with a few exception perhaps) everything that gets created and recorded is automatically copyrighted.
all the best,
drew
http://rukiddinmez.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
R U Kiddin Me?!?!?!
Re:Get Your Money's Worth (Score:3, Insightful)
First, it only covers music.
Second, while downloading is generally accepted to be legal (even before this crap), uploading may still fall under distribution, which isn't. We've had a judge question that (with logic along the lines of "there can't be a download without an upload, so if the download is legal..."), but there's been nothing conclusive.
The idea with physical copies, for example, is that it's legal if I lend you a CD, you make a copy for personal use, and I get my CD back. However, I can't make the copy and distribute it to you.
So, speaking as a Canadian, we'd much prefer if you folks south of the border take all the risks of uploading.
c.
Re:Paying for Media (Score:2, Insightful)
- RG>
Re:Paying for Media (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because they originally asked for the tax when you could only fit 10 - 15 songs on a cd, cd burners cost $700, and blank media were $35 a piece.
Now you can fit hundreds of mp3s on a cd, cd burners cost less than $20, and blank media are ... gee, at less than half a buck a piece, they're mostly tax nowadays ... dvd blanks, at 20 cents a piece, are now half the price of cd blanks.
Re:Reminds me of the ol' Microsoft vs. Sun discuss (Score:3, Insightful)
And there are about a million devices worldwide that use java - from cell phones to computers to whatever
And no, mono doesn't count. It sucks (but then again, so does C3).
So, to put it back into the context - the CRIA wanted a guaranteed revenue stream by taxing blank CDs ... it no longer works in their favour, so they want to change the rules of the game. Sounds a LOT like Microsoft. The only thing left is for them to start throwing chairs, and secretly funding other groups to sue people a la SCO.
Re:Get Your Money's Worth (Score:5, Insightful)
The law in Canada states that it's OK to copy music for your own personal use. This means that you can borrow a friend's equipment and music to make a copy for yourself, but your friend would not be allowed to make a copy for you (even though the end result is the same, it's the intent that's different.)
How this affects uploading or downloading: when I fire up my bittorrent client and connect, I am initiating a download. In effect, I am the one downloading, using the hardware and software of other people. When someone else connects to my machine, it requires no action from me - they're simply using *my* hardware and software to make the copy.
Think about it: if you go to a website and click a link, *you* are downloading (making a copy), but there is nobody else involved in the transaction - just you and the remote web server. There is nobody clicking something on the web server to enable the transfer. (Note that "who put the file there in the first place" is an entirely *different* question.)
Note that this has already been decided by the court - the difference between uploading and downloading is who initiates the transfer. If you initiate the transfer, then you're either downloading or uploading, but it requires no action from anyone else, there is no uploading happening.
Note that "making available" is a different legal question. There is currently an effort by the CRIA to add "making available" an exclusive right of the copyright holder (which would negate this entire argument.)
Re:I agree with him. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Get Your Money's Worth (Score:2, Insightful)
Well no, I think he got it absolutely correct. The Canadian government assumed everyone, or a large percentage of the population, was going to be doing it anyway and so authorized a charge on all media of a certain class. If the opinion was that it was a tiny minority there would be no justification for the charge. Further, since they are making one pay for copying whether I do it or not, there is presumption of guilt. Imagine if they decided lots of people steal so we'll just put everyone in jail for a couple of days each year.
The carrot that went with the stick was that people can copy without fear. Why would anyone buy music when they have already been charged for it whenever they buy blank media? I think a lot of people who would never have copied/dl'd music began to do so as a result of this law.
As for artists getting the money - I admit I haven't checked for a while but that doesn't seem to actually be happening, despite collecting the levy money for years.