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Canadian Music Stars Fight Against DRM 506

Posted by samzenpus from the it's-ok-to-share-eh dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Some of Canada's best known musicians, including Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlin, Sum 41, and Barenaked Ladies, have formed a new copyright coalition. The artists say in a press release that they oppose file sharing lawsuits, the use of DRM, and DMCA-style legislation and that they want record labels to stop claiming that they represent their views."
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Canadian Music Stars Fight Against DRM More

Canadian Music Stars Fight Against DRM

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @08:36PM (#15209013)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • For once (Score:5, Funny)

    by SirLestat ( 452396 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @08:36PM (#15209016)
    I am from Quebec and finally proud to be Canadian ! Way to go guys !

    • Re:For once (Score:2, Funny)

      by Locke2005 ( 849178 )
      Wow! One Quebequoi that actually wants to be a Canadian! Now, if you could just convince the other 7,568,639 residents of Quebec that being Canadian isn't so bad, then we'd really have something!

    • Re:For once (Score:5, Funny)

      by jonnythan ( 79727 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:07PM (#15209170)
      What does Quebec have to do with Canada? :)
      • Quebec is it's own special little place in the world, they speak neither 'french' nor are they Canadian. And they elect people to FEDERAL positions from the sovereigntist party, go figure. Know what kills me though, I've travelled all over Europe, from Prague to Barcelona/Helsinki to Rome and I never had a problem speaking English with people.

        I can't say the same thing about Quebec.. a lot of people refuse to speak English and they're fucking rude about it. Even in Montreal there is a snidey attit

        • Re:For once (Score:2, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Yeah, but try getting some good poutine in Prague.
    • Actually, I think you need to be from Alberta [deadtroll.com] to say that. If you don't know the group, see if you can find "I am Canadian", "The Toronto Song", and/or "The War of 1812". If you're like most people here, the "System Administrator Song" and "Behind The Scenes @ Microsoft" might interest you as well.

  • Serious question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HeavensBlade23 ( 946140 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @08:39PM (#15209037)
    If Sarah McLachlan opposes DRM so much why did she have it on one of her CDs? As a matter of fact the CD I'm talking about was one of the Sony rootkit CDs.

    • Re:Serious question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sinclair44 ( 728189 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @08:41PM (#15209049) Homepage
      It may not have been her choice, or she may have not even known about it until it was too late. I imagine that the people in charge of such things don't really care what the artists think, as long as they get their piles money.

    • Re:Serious question (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Xuranova ( 160813 )
      You think she had any say so in her disc pressing process? She got to see the pretty pictures, the song selection, and well then the big wigs took over the rest.

    • My first guess. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @08:43PM (#15209059)
      That would be a question to ask Sarah McLachlan, and as far as I am aware, Sarah McLahlan does not read slashdot. If you ask the question here, she will not see it.

      However my guess would be that it is something along the lines of
      1. Her label did it, not her
      2. She is opposed to her label having done it, and
      3. This is why she is starting a public pressure group specifically designed to get her label to stop doing such things.
      Perhaps you will suggest that Sarah McLachlan should have used her leverage as an artist with the label to prevent them from engaging in such practices with her music at the time the CD was released. If you do this, I will laugh until I pass out from lack of oxygen.

      • Re:My first guess. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AdamD1 ( 221690 ) <adam@brainrubLAPLACE.com minus math_god> on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @10:20PM (#15209500) Homepage
        You may be half right on some of those. It's important to note that "she" (McLachlan) is not the one actually starting it. However she is among the artists who support it.

        First: most of those artists are either on the Nettwerk label (McLachlan) or are managed or co-managed by Nettwerk (LaVigne, BNL, McLachlan, Raine Maida, Kreviazuk, Sum41). That makes it pretty obvious that two things are actually happening:

        1) The artists, while feeling pretty hosed about how much rampant downloading is still going on, are not so hard-hit by that action that they feel outraged.

        2) They do actually have some say about this since they are money-making artists on predominantly major-distributed labels.

        I think that second point is key. Every major label artist, by that I mean one signed directly to an international major label, featuring international mass distribution, has either remained silent about this issue or has been so outspoken against downloading in particular that they've greatly damaged their fanbase ([cough]Metallica[/cough].)

        Yes, most of these artists are on independent labels (biggest exceptions: Lavigne is on Arista, BNL are on Warner.) However that does not exclude them from major international distributorship (Nettwerk is distributed by EMI. Sloan is distributed by Sony / BMG. Most of the others have major distributors for their releases.) Whether you like Avril Lavigne's music or not, she is a top-five-selling artist who has joined this group of artists to make it known: she still doesn't agree with the tactics her major label is claiming to represent by suing her fans.

        If it were a smaller artist - say: Harvey Danger, who actually allowed full on torrent files of their album to be released with no restrictions whatsoever last year - the attention payed to that motive is slight, and the response is usually "Big deal, who's heard of them? What difference will that make?"

        I get the feeling that this is more likely a management / publishing mandate, with some artist buy-in. Nettwerk also handles or has a great deal to say about the publishing for all of these artists.

        Interesting development. Maybe we'll finally get the music industry that consumers actually want, instead of this cat and mouse crap. Anything that goes a step or two towards evening the playing field when it comes to this industry is definitely a good thing. The last thing we need (which we have now) is another five Nickelbacks getting mass airplay on radio and then hearing them and their label and agents complaining that sales are down strictly because of downloading.

        ad
        • Something I've not seen pointed out is the huge rise in the amount of touring by `established' acts. Take, as a random example, Jackson Browne. I think I've seen most of his European tours since the early 80s, and they were pretty thin on the ground. But I've seen him play pretty well annually for the last three or four years. Emmylou is touring with Mark Knopfler in June, but she's playing Cambridge Folk Festival in July as well. Every artist I'm interested in, from pub to arenas, is touring far more
    • Isn't it likely that she's in this coalition because her record company put a rootkit on her CD's without her knowing about it?

    • Re:Serious question (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      BECAUSE SHE HAD NO SAY IN THE MATTER. She's a musician, do you think she's a bit-head like the rest of Slashdot? She makes the music and it probably came as a belated shock to her that her fans couldn't player her music on their computers.

      Jebus...did you read the article? Did you read the part about how they say that the record company does not represent their interests??

      Jesse Cook had the same problem. "Nomad" was released with full DRM bullshit without his knowledge or consent. His official forum was

    • Re:Serious question (Score:2, Informative)

      by supertoad ( 858323 )
      yeah, just because the artists hate drm, doesn't mean they don't have to use it. i sent a nasty email to the trews, another canadian band, complaining about their new cd having mediamax. they sent me back a nice letter saying that they were just as pissed off about it as i was, and there was nothing they could do. sony put the drm on the cd at the last minute without telling them, and they had no say in the matter.
  • Why don't American artist replicate this type of coalition? We let Canada beat us!! Canada!

    • Re:repeat in america please.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:23PM (#15209242) Journal
      Don't worry, we've got contigency plans for this type of thing.

      Canada's low gun ownership rate will make the occupation much easier.

      • Re:repeat in america please.... (Score:5, Informative)

        by udowish ( 804631 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:35PM (#15209303) Journal
        actually your are not correct. Canadians own more guns per capita than people from the US. Bring it on!

        • AMERICA FTW! (Score:5, Funny)

          by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Thursday April 27, 2006 @01:09AM (#15210157)
          The American have a secret weapon though. We will enter one of your clean cities fully armed and then when confronted we will start to litter. As you Canadians desperately try to pick up our empty cans of shitty American beer and bring them to a recycling station you will be completely vulnerable to our cop killing FMJ semi-automatic assault rifles, grotesquely large hand guns, and the odd red neck wielding a bazooka or machine gun that he bought before they were made illegal.

          Canadians fleeing to the recycling station with shitty American beer cans in hand will be easy picking off by our highly skilled red neck population. While our gansta/thug population might be a little questionable in their aim, they will make up for it with round output and shear enthusiasm at being given the chance to bust a cap in yo cracker ass. To the Canadians defense though, our skinny white guy wanna be rappers from the 'burbs will likely take out a few Americans as they hold guns bigger then their head sideways and shoot like fucking retards.

          We will send then send in the upper middle suburban punks dressed in 200+ dollar outfits of pre-ripped black jeans, black shirts with an obscure band on it, and metal studs randomly glued on to their clothing to clean up the mess. They will hunt down the surviving Canadians in a desperate attempt to retrieve the empty cans of shitty American beer in the hopes of draining the last drops of swill that might be left at the bottom of the can. The wrist scarred (across the street style, not down the highway) teenaged girls , feminine teenaged guys, and sketchy 40 year old men goths at that point will come out to add insult to injury by read shitty poetry about death and try to one up each other by doing grotesque things to the corpses.

          Have no fear though, us Americans are not without compassion and mercy. We will blast some shitty (is there any other type?) emo music over the battlefield and send the emo kids out. They will promptly start to cry. True, they are crying at the memory of their long lost sixth grade girlfriend and lamenting at the difficulty of their inhumanly difficult life living in suburban America, but we can pretend they are crying for lost Canadian souls.

          Oh hell, what is a little karma. At least I amuse myself.

          • Re:AMERICA FTW! : CANADIAN RESPONSE (Score:5, Funny)

            by erbmjw ( 903229 ) on Thursday April 27, 2006 @01:56AM (#15210304)
            Ha ha silly Americans! You think that by dropping shitty American empty beer cans on our pristine cities and heavenly nature reserves that we Canadians will respond with a recycling program ... well then, you should have picked plastic as your litter of choice!

            The mere sight of crappy American beer cans {empty or not} brings out the deeply cherished Canadian Hockey Fan in every person who has spent at least one hockey season in Canada.

            Sticks will appear {seemingly from nowhere}, pucks will fly faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a speeding locomotive {yeah the big "S" was invented in Canada}, and to add insult to injury skate blades will be used to run over your multitudes, twitching, soon to be remains.

            After this induced frenzy has calmed, we Canadains will then politley bandaged any surviving Americans {not many}, administer Tim Horton's coffee and donuts to stablize them, and return them to their home state for medical care.

            On the bright side though, the American emo kids will still be there to cry over your remains - primarily because we Canadains are polite and so don't pick on the whiners. Oh that and we'll need the emo kids to carry the empty American beer cans back across the border!

            Both your and my karma are now rapidly dropping, but at least you amused me!

            :)

  • It's a shame its too late for Sarah's last album (Score:5, Interesting)

    by QX-Mat ( 460729 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @08:43PM (#15209062)
    I took it back to Woolworths the week I brought it. It skipped badly on my Sony Vaio - my computer is my audio rig, and with the speaks I had hooked up at the time, I certainly wanted it to stay that way.

    Just last week I saw the Sarah McLachlan DVD and thought, "stupid drm" and not about the artist. I will force myself to see her in a better light now, but if she's not touring near me, I can't exactly give her the money I want to (by buying her material) because although she's going the right away about things _now_, her cds on the shelf are still DRMed.

    In the end I was forced to I download Afterglow. I became a pirate because I couldnt experience the music on my, and on my creative zen.

    For an artist I discovered via napster a long time ago, this sure does suck. Are they trying to lock me out of the market, or really fence us into a no-rip-no-choice era? Either way I see it, when I can't use WhateverAMP and my mp3 player, they've lost me as a customer.

    Matt

    • Legal Download (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:05PM (#15209162)
      Or you could have gone to https://www.werkshop.com/sarahmp3/index.jsp [werkshop.com] where you can purchase a few of her cds in mp3 or flac format and avoided DRM altogether.
    • It's funny... you love her music, and you wanted it, so you went out and bought it - came home, found that the DRM killed the experience, and...

      returned the product and pirated it instead.

      That's funny, because you could also just as well have pirated it without returning the product - that way you'd still be supporting the artist (in a very small way, and yes - you'd also be supporting the label, the drm guys, the shop owner, the guy driving the truck with packages of CDs/DVDs, etc.). All in all, though, n

  • Missing Artist (Score:3, Funny)

    by kloffinger ( 837670 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @08:45PM (#15209074)
    TFA: "Canada's leading artists to speak for themselves."
    Yet there is no mention of Bryan Adams.
    What kind of a hoax is this?

  • "Piracy" is good for the RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by javacowboy ( 222023 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @08:49PM (#15209086)
    I was going to blog about this, but I'm feeling lazy tonight.

    First of all, like RMS, I hate applying the term "piracy" to non-commercial copyright violations, so I won't use that term. Instead, I'll call it what it is, unauthorized copying.

    Unauthorized copying is to the RIAA what "terrorism" is to the Bush Adminstration, namely, a scapegoat and a straw man argument with which to justify draconian legislation and to garner (barely) sufficient public support for any new legislation favoured by both institutions.

    As the Bush Adminstration maintains the conditions (ex: War on Iraq) to indirectly promote terrorism, it justifies renewing the Patriot Act on the basis that it will "help stop terrorism". To make a blatantly obvious statement, the goal of the Patriot Act does not in any way, shape, or form have anything whatsoever to do with stop terrorists, but is instead intended to grant the government the ability to further spy on and control its citizens.

    In the same vein, I believe that the RIAA wishes to maintain a certain level of unauthorized copying because it will allow them to justify legislation such as the DMCA and the broadcast flag. The goal of such legislation is not to eliminate or even substantially reduce unauthorized copying, but to maintain control over the industry and keep out fledging competitors, such as independent artists who would have otherwise been promoted through P2P, and to maintain their antiquated business models, which for all intents and purposes should have become obsolete.

    So, it's all an elaborate shell game on their part.

  • They don't believe so strongly as to walk away... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    from their record contracts.

    Several of Sarah McLachlan's CDs are DRM'd:

    http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php [eff.org]
    http://hcs.harvard.edu/~freeculture/wiki/index.php /DRM [harvard.edu]

    (data unavailable for the other members, but it wouldn't surprise me), and almost all (Broken Social Scene and possibly a couple others being exceptions) are currently signed to RIAA/CRIA member labels. Most have released albums with those labels in the last couple years - i.e., since the campaign of lawsuits started.

    Put yo
    • I don't know about the other artists but BNL's contract with Reprise Records expired in 2003. Technically they're independent (again), although the records are still being distributed by Warner.

      And there's no sign of DRM on 2004's Barenaked For The Holidays. That's the album that was re-released on a USB key full of DRM unencumbered (but still lossy) MP3s last year...

  • If I had a million dollars... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stick_Fig ( 740331 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @08:50PM (#15209093) Homepage
    "...we wouldn't have to download torrents!"

    "But we would download torrents! In fact, we'd just download more!"

  • Record companies smarter than they seem (Score:5, Funny)

    by AeroIllini ( 726211 ) <aeroillini@NOSpam.gmail.com> on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:00PM (#15209133)
    I think the record companies are blaming piracy because it's a solid business case.
    addDRM(music);
    switch (whatHappensAfter) {
      case "piracy goes down":
        println("See?! We TOLD you the evil pirates were stealing! DRM works!");
        addMoreDRM(music,movies,television,software);
        money++;
        break;
      case "piracy goes up":
        println("Ahh! They're stealing more to spite us! This is war!");
        addMoreDRM(music,movies,television,software);
        money++;
        break;
      case "piracy stays the same":
        println("Those filthy pirates will steal no matter what we do! We must make the DRM stronger!");
        addMoreDRM(music,movies,television,software);
        money++;
        break;
    }
    These artists just created a buffer overflow. Woo!

    • Re:Record companies smarter than they seem (Score:4, Informative)

      by HermanAB ( 661181 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:58PM (#15209411)
      You can optimize that;

      addDRM(music);
      switch (whatHappensAfter) {
          case "piracy goes down":
              println("See?! We TOLD you the evil pirates were stealing! DRM works!");
              break;
          case "piracy goes up":
              println("Ahh! They're stealing more to spite us! This is war!");
              break;
          case "piracy stays the same":
              println("Those filthy pirates will steal no matter what we do! We must make the DRM stronger!");
              break;
      }
      addMoreDRM(music,movies,television,software);
      money++;
  • It's no surprise that Avril Lavigne would do something like this... given her huge punk heritage and following, her fans would definitely get pissed off and leave her negative® text messages if she didn't rebel.

  • Convictions that Rock (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:01PM (#15209137)
    Here's what these artists are saying...

    On DRM: "Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice."

    On P2P file sharing: "Fans who share music are not thieves or pirates. Sharing music has been happening for decades."

    On DMCA "the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act is one of the world's most draconian pieces of intellectual-property law."

    On Lawsuits: "Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical. We do not want to sue our fans. The labels have been suing our fans against our will, and laws enabling these suits cannot be justified in our names."

    Members include: Sum 41, Blue Rodeo, Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Our Lady Peace and Sloan to name a few.

  • Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:03PM (#15209147) Homepage Journal

    It looks like at least a few artists have come to realize that the music industry cartel's stand on DRM is not helpful to artists. If they can get more artists on the bandwagon, they may be able to influence the debate. It's a helluva lot more difficult for the labels to convince people that DRM "helps artists" when the artists themselves are against it.

    • Re:Excellent news (Score:3, Insightful)

      by courtarro ( 786894 )
      The RIAA will probably just fight this by claiming the artists don't understand economics and don't realize the RIAA is helping them. The RIAA will always have a larger propaganda machine than the artists - a propaganda machine used against them but powered by their own blood; the only way to solve the problem in the long term is for new artists to keep their work out of the hands of RIAA-based labels. Only then will the RIAA lose its power.

  • Broken Social Scene - their action (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lieutenant_Dan ( 583843 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:04PM (#15209156) Homepage Journal
    Their last ("You forgot it in people") album had a limited initial run with the copy protection. When the band found out they put a stop to it. See this link for an interview excerpt. Mind you, they're the biggest act on Arts&Crafts' label so that probably had a huge influence too.

    I actually bought the copy-protected one (which wasn't labeled as such) and the label offered to replace it. HMV wouldn't.

  • [Hero] (Score:2)

    by daeg ( 828071 )
    If there ever was a use for Fark's tags on Slashdot, this is one that deserves a big spankin [Hero] tag.

  • Barenaked ladies changing foot? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:10PM (#15209186)
    Anyone remember... We fooled you, huh? We're sneaky like that. [keepmedia.com]
    • * Hoping to foil the swapping of her American Life album, Madonna created full-length decoy files that contained a few seconds of music and the message, "What the (expletive) do you think you're doing?" Some downloaders responded by sampling the rant and creating their own music tracks around it.

      Bwahahaha, leave it to pirates to illegally remix an antipiracy track ;^)

  • Great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by imadork ( 226897 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:11PM (#15209191) Homepage
    It's almost enough to forgive them for inflicting Celine Dion on us....

  • Hypocrisy with Barenaked Ladies? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lieutenant_Dan ( 583843 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:17PM (#15209214) Homepage Journal
    From this article [p2pnet.net]. I remember reading this in the Toronto Star as well, which I haven't forgotten since:


    The Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson also wades in with, "I'm totally fine with people downloading music, as long as they steal everything that they want. If you want pants, go steal them. If you need gas in your car, you should steal it, because you can. As long as people are consistent I don't have a problem. As long as they see themselves as thieves in general then I don't mind if they steal everything that they like. But it irks me that it's only okay to steal music."


    So at least one of them is against sharing/downloading.

    • This was when the band was still on contract to Warner/Elektra/etc. They've since fulfilled that, and since then all their statements have been essentially the opposite.

      The press release names Steven Page (the other lead singer of BNL) as the contact, so I think this is actually their baby.
    • So at least one of them is against sharing/downloading.

      That article was dated the 12th of May, 2004, perhaps he has changed his mind since then.
    • So at least one of them is against sharing/downloading.

      Actually, they could all be against sharing and downloading: nothing in their stance says "we think it's OK for you to download music without paying for it." What they've said is that they think the RIAA lawsuits are wrong, which is a totally separate issue from whether you think downloading music is morally wrong or right in the first place.

      You can still be an artist, and dislike it when people steal your music, but think that the RIAA has gone way too far. Likewise, I'm against shoplifting but I wouldn't want them to start chopping people's hands off for it; I can be against chopping people's hands off and still be "anti shoplifting."

      The black and white attitude where anyone who's anti-RIAA or anti-lawsuits is automatically pro-filesharing is just what the RIAA would like you to believe. It's an automatic "with us or against us." I'm not necessarily saying that you said that, but I think a lot of people make that assumption and I was just taking your comment as an opportunity to clear it up.

      Just because somebody hates the RIAA/MPAA doesn't mean they think it's necessarily right to just go on Kazaa/BitTorrent and download stuff without somehow compensating the artists for it.

      • Mod parent up. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by weston ( 16146 )
        Understanding this is key. BNL is known for trying other tactics to *persuade* fans to buy their stuff, rather than retaliation via lawsuit, and it's exactly this distinction that much of the music industry seems to be missing at the moment.

  • write to them and say thank you (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Frag-A-Muffin ( 5490 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:17PM (#15209218)
    I just sent them a short email thanking them for understanding that their fans are mostly NOT thieves. Is it any wonder that I in fact already own most of the CDs from most of the artists in that coalition?

    Proud to be a Canadian today.

    P.S. I especially like what's on their front page as the #1 bullet:

    1. Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical

    Well duh?! When was that last time you saw a successful business model where you sue the pants out of your customers? :)

    • Re:write to them and say thank you (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:24PM (#15209254)
      When was that last time you saw a successful business model where you sue the pants out of your customers? :)

      Well if you were in the business of selling more pants ..

  • Avril Lavigne? Sum 41? (Score:5, Funny)

    by volfro ( 915297 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:30PM (#15209284)
    I suppose the title uses the term "music" loosely.
  • They say the major labels are doing it in their name.
    Then they say most Canadian artists are on independent labels. If you are not with them they can't do anything in YOUR name.

    oh well, at least saying something is good as there's too much noise on the other side :)

  • Canada: Indie Music Explosion (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ironring2006 ( 968941 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:59PM (#15209413)
    It's nice to see some of the big names in the Canadian Music Industry stick up and fight for this. Although, the big thing in music right now, at least among my demographic (University Student) is an explosion in the indie music genre. We are the generation that was just discovering music during the hey day of Napster searching for all the stuff we saw on MuchMusic and on the local radio. We're tech savvy enough to seek out alternate sources of music. We're the ones that really do fill up those 60GB iPods.

    And you know what we're filling them with? Some of the most popular bands among my friends have been The Arcade Fire [arcadefire.com], Death From Above 1979 [deathfromabove1979.com], Controller Controllor, Broken Social Scene, Hawksley Workman [hawksleyworkman.com], Joel Plaskett Emergency [joelplaskett.com], Jimmy Swift Band [thejimmyswiftband.com], Matt Mays [mattmays.com], and countless others. Many of them allow their live shows to be traded on etree [etree.org].

    You want to know why these groups are popular? They tour a lot, play a lot of gigs, put on great live shows and are overall in it for the music and the fans. We've identified with the artists that put the music before the money and appreciate the innovative sounds and artistic views that they bring.

    The true Canadian music scene is alive and prospering already without the help of the major music labels, with or without all their evil tactics. Anyway, at the very least, just check out these bands!

  • Same Group of Do-Gooders... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ablair ( 318858 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @10:10PM (#15209449)
    Seems like the usual suspects fighting on the side of consumer rights again. This isn't the first time [www.hour.ca] the growing artistic community around Nettwerk Music Group has attempted to make an impact, even the Nettwerk CEO saying "Litigation is destructive, it must stop .... as per Nettwerk copyrights, we have never sued anybody and all our music is open source to encourage fans to share it with others and help us promote our Artists. As per those Artists we manage on other labels (Majors), we take issue with those labels claiming that litigating our fans is in our interest, as it clearly is not."

    None of the major labels would dare utter sacrilege like this. But to be fair, in Canada even the Recording Industry Association (CRIA) is not as virulent as it's ugly cousin to the south. They moderate their message somewhat with more honesty, for example recently releaseing a study [michaelgeist.ca] showing:

    CRIA's own research now concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders' computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services.
    (words of Prof. Michael Geist, University of Ottawa)

  • Barenaked Ladies - Tech Savvy guys (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Phishcast ( 673016 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @10:10PM (#15209451)
    This is kind of off topic, but it's fresh in my mind. I just got back to my hotel from the EMC World conference in Boston where the Barenaked Ladies were tonight's entertainment. The skinny lead singer guy was talking about how the band was like-minded with the technical crowd. He said, "I've got Windows XP running on my Macbook with an Intel Pro Duo processor". He said it was only so he could update his GPS. That comment got a lot of applause. The wider guy mentioned ethernet and how it was really just tiny pneumatic tubes like at the drive-up bank teller. They were pretty funny guys.

  • CRIA and RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)

    by macdaddy357 ( 582412 ) <macdaddy357@hotmail.com> on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @11:15PM (#15209721)
    CRIA stands for Canadian Recording Industry Association. RIAA stands for Recording Industry Association of America. No "A" in either group's acronym stands for artists. I am glad they are finally forming organizations of their own. Boycott the big labels! [dontbuycds.org]

  • Just getting back from Asia (Score:5, Informative)

    by Allnighterking ( 74212 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @11:45PM (#15209859) Homepage
    And noting one thing. (I was shown by a tech friend over there) that the locally pirated copies of DVD's and CD's for sale were DRM protected using the exact same protection as the original. You see when you do a bit for bit copy you get an exact copy. DRM only prevents fair use it doesn't even come close to slowing down the back alley black market.

  • Bout time, I like the speeding ticket idea (Score:3, Interesting)

    by KIDputer ( 796668 ) on Thursday April 27, 2006 @12:49AM (#15210095)
    Bout time somebody without bazillions has a say. Makes sense why come down hard on the fans. I say just make downloaders pay $50 fines when caught. Like speeding tickets. You can NEVER stop people from speeding or downloading p2p, but you can give them a little fine to make them be more cautious. Plus paying $50 from time to time is not big deal. It is not what Shawn Fanning had in mind, but it can work. Paying $5000 for a hard disk with a few hundred songs of music is just insane, and makes people like me ready for a full out boycott. I have not purchased a single CD since they shut Napster down. Poor RIAA dudes don't even know there is a boycott going on, they think illegal downloads are the cause for stale sales. Mostly, I find it ironic and moronic that the record lables laughed in Shawn Fanning's face when he mentioned $5/mo. for unlimmited downloads, and now this is a reality at Yahoo, that's crap. Things like this should not happen. Shawn Fanning was the founder of P2P and he should be as rich as Bill Gates for pioneering a technology, not abused and left out to dry. The RIAA and all supporters of Nazi DRM deserve whats coming to them. Best bet is to BOYCOTT, BOTCOTT, BOYCOTT until this "fair use" deal is resolved in a manner that is acceptable to ALL.

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