CRIA Admits P2P Downloading Legal in Canada

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.'"

Get Your Money's Worth

[sqrt(2) (786011)]

To our dear neighbors to the North, since your government seems to think it's OK to just assume you're all breaking the law anyway, and charge you accordingly with the extra price on blank media, you might as well do your best to get what you're paying for. Fill those torrent queues with music, movies, and games you already paid for with this levy!

Also, if you don't mind, keep seeding when you're done ;)

Re:Get Your Money's Worth

[djmurdoch (306849)]

You've got it wrong: the government thinks that it is *not* illegal to copy music for personal use. The levy gives me the right to make copies of music for my use. Period. Nothing illegal about it. And why shouldn't it be legal? Why should the government support one or two particular delivery methods, rather than letting me get the music any way I like, as long as the artist gets paid?

Unlike the US version of the levy, I don't need to copy onto levied media. Copying anywhere is fine. The argument for this is that the levy can be expanded (and there's currently a motion to expand it to the iPod, which is what the CRIA is objecting to).

But do note that this applies only to music, not to movies or games. No levies paid to them.

Re:Get Your Money's Worth

[InvalidError (771317)]

While it is legal to download, distribution (upload) still isn't, therefore leaving finished torrents of infringing material continue uploading once the download is complete would be a liability.

Re:Get Your Money's Worth

[schon (31600)]

leaving finished torrents of infringing material continue uploading once the download is complete would be a liability.

No, it wouldn't - because you're not uploading - someone is downloading from you. (This is not just semantics.)

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:Get Your Money's Worth

[digitrev (989335)]

Actually, in Canada, making available isn't illegal. You can see the full text of the most recent case here: http://reports.fja.gc.ca/en/2004/2004fc488/2004fc488.html?tag=nl [fja.gc.ca]

So as of the last 3 years, it has been fully legal to make your music available as well as download music. Seems that Canada does support a certain amount of privacy.

Re:

[schon (31600)]

Actually, in Canada, making available isn't illegal.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was.

What I meant is that it is completely legal now, but that the CRIA is attempting to make it illegal. Whether they'll succeed or not depends on how corruptible our legislators are.

Re:

[c (8461)]

Unfortunately, it's not that simple.

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

I agree with him.

[Jafafa Hots (580169)]

I hate it when its perfectly legal to do illegal things.

You are no longer a Pirate

[Nymz (905908)]

You are now an undocumented copier.

Schizoid if I ever heard it!

[VE3OGG (1034632)]

They wanted that levy in the first place, now they don't. Make up your damned minds!

(and as a note: I don't download copyrighted material at all -- for the most part, it isn't worth it. I am just getting fed up with their have-their-cake-and-eat-it-too philosophy)

Surprised?

[Poromenos1 (830658)]

Is it any surprise that they will try to change the laws when they don't suit them?

Re:

[zotz (3951)]

"(and as a note: I don't download copyrighted material at all -- for the most part, it isn't worth it. I am just getting fed up with their have-their-cake-and-eat-it-too philosophy)"

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 so

Does Size Matter?

[Nymz (905908)]

I wonder if storage capacity has had anything to do with changing attitudes.

• Cassette Tape - copies 1 album
• Compact Disc - copies ~12 albums (mp3)
• Apple iPod - copies ~10,000 songs

At 99 per song, I'm sure the average college student with an iPod, has spent $10,000 on iTunes, but perhaps the CRIA feels differently.

No, it's just panic

[by Anonymous Coward]

Yes. And it's panic that the cash monster they created is coming back to bite them.

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:Does Size Matter?

[djmurdoch (306849)]

Are they going to expand this levy to cell phones as well? Mine has 2 gigs of memory and I use it all the time as a music player. There's also my hard drive and all the other components that store music information on my computer and play it back, will there be a levy on that as well. Then there's radio receivers and internet access itself...I think it's time that major record labels realize that they are no longer needed. Aside from the sparingly relevant music that they put out there, they only exist to exploit their artists and their customers. I have no pity for any hardship that they encounter.

You have to remember that there are multiple players here, and they don't all want the same thing. The CRIA represents multinational labels, and they now hate the levy because they hardly represent any Canadian artists, so they don't get much of the payout.

Then there's the CPCC and the other collectives, who actually collect the levy. They'd love to expand it to cover everything.

And there's the Copyright Board, the government body who gets to hold hearings and make decisions. They're actually pretty good at finding a balance. The rule they seem to follow is that if a medium is mainly used to hold recorded music, then it gets the levy, with the amount depending on exactly how often it's used for music, and how big it is. So generic hard drives are probably safe, but the ones in MP3 players probably aren't. (They were nearly taxed once before, but escaped on a technicality. If the levy survives the multinational lobby, I would guess they'll get hit.)

If your phone's memory is mainly used (i.e. by most people, not just mainly used by you) for downloaded recorded music, it might end up being levied.

Poetic Justice

[fox1324 (1039892)]

Looks like poetic justice to me. They're the ones who asked for that ridiculous tax in the first place, and now its coming back to haunt them. Serves them right- it was an obvious corporate cash grab, apparently rammed down the throat of innocent Canadians (with the aid of the government, no less) for no good reason. I say, don't let them repeal it.

Paying for Media

[Algorithmnast (1105517)]

Here in the U.S., we pay a 2 percent royalty [house.gov] on all medium capable of storing and playing back music.And we've been paying it since 1992, when the "Digital Audio Recording Technology Act" was passed.

However, our Congress hasn't set up a legal link between the paying of that tax and our legal rights to use the devices in any ways that exceed thing on which we don't pay a tax.

It seems that in Canada you have that right attached to a tax. Hm - being taxed for something and gaining a benefit. How novel!

Re:

[tomhudson (43916)]

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.

I hope they expand the levy to DVDs and more...

[Panaqqa (927615)]

IANAL, but my own thoughts on it are that since I have paid the levy I am free to copy whatever music I want onto those blank CDs. I would be interested to know if the artists actually are getting the proceeds - if so then I would think this would be doubly bad for the Canadian mafiAA. After all, if the artists are getting paid then most mafiAA claims to the moral high road go out the window.

At the time the levy was imposed DVDs were not available as a storage medium for the mainstream. Now that it is tim

Re:You're still stealing from people

[Film11 (736010)]

I guess that makes it ok for people purchasing blank media for completely legitimate uses to get charged extra for other people's piracy?

Re:You're still stealing from people

[by Anonymous Coward]

Rationalize this: I'm PAYING a levy on hundreds and hundreds of CDs containing my own data, and I've used perhaps a handful of CDs to store music copied from my own, purchased music CDs (i.e. mix CDs).

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.

[headkase (533448)]

You're absolutely right. But while it is against the law right now, millions of people do not have a moral qualm against it proven by the fact that they are downloading. With all the lobbying the copyright driven industries have done to increase their exclusive rights to ridiculous terms the phenomenon of P2P is likened more as a popular revolt against an unjust arrangement than what is "right" right now.

Re:Yup, but.

[watchingeyes (1097855)]

The only time this question has ever come before a Judge in Canada, he ruled that it WAS NOT illegal to download music in Canada.

http://web.archive.org/web/20040407114727/http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=canada_home&articleID=1563030 [archive.org]

Quote: "Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled Wednesday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association did not prove there was copyright infringement by 29 so-called music uploaders. He said that downloading a song or making files available in shared directories, like those on Kazaa, does not constitute copyright infringement under the current Canadian law."

Re:

[djmurdoch (306849)]

Software and video DVDs aren't covered by the levy, so copying those does "steal" from the artists. But the artists are being paid (by the levy) for copies of music, so that's not theft any more than buying from HMV is theft from iTMS.

Re:Reminds me of the ol' Microsoft vs. Sun discuss

[tomhudson (43916)]

And there are about a million devices worldwide that use java - from cell phones to computers to whatever

... and C# is used where ....? Windows boxes.

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 f