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Canadian Supreme Court To Define ISP Role 240

Posted by Hemos from the the-battle-royale dept.
Ubergrendle writes "The CBC is reporting that the Canadian Supreme Court is hearing a case regarding copyright royalties and the responsibilities of ISPs both here and abroad. From the article: 'The people who represent Canadian artists say everyone who has a hand in transmitting recorded music is liable. "Creative people should be compensated for the use and exploitation of their music," said Paul Spurgeon, general counsel for the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. "We're obviously in a struggle right now trying to figure out the best techniques to ensure that they are compensated appropriately.'" This follows on the heels of the Canadian music industry asking that this case be heard. Given the trade relations, this case should have consequences far outside of Canada proper.
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Canadian Supreme Court To Define ISP Role More

Canadian Supreme Court To Define ISP Role

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  • How broad? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rebeka thomas ( 673264 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:04AM (#7627419)
    The people who represent Canadian artists say everyone who has a hand in transmitting recorded music is liable.

    That's the person who copies it, whoever writes the software that copies it (whether p2p, ftp, samba, http), the person who pays for net access, the person who owns the phoneline or cable connection, the ISP, the ISPs between ISPs, the receiving ISP, and all those people again on the receiving end.

    Wonder if they truly think about this. the RIAA and their equivalents worldwide can't all be so insanely silly and see that their distribution methods are so outdated that fewer and fewer people are using them. Could they?

    • Re:How broad? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by alman ( 86957 )

      That's the person who copies it, whoever writes the software that copies it (whether p2p, ftp, samba, http), the person who pays for net access, the person who owns the phoneline or cable connection, the ISP, the ISPs between ISPs, the receiving ISP, and all those people again on the receiving end.
      What about the person who created the music in the first place? If it's good, then it will be copied. Should the artists also be included in the list?

    • Re:How broad? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rebeka thomas ( 673264 )
      Ughh brainfade day.

      Wonder if they truly think about this. the RIAA and their equivalents worldwide can't all be so insanely silly and see that their distribution methods are so outdated that fewer and fewer people are using them. Could they?

      I should have said: I wonder if they truly think about what's happening, and see how outdated their distribution is, and that they're going to just keep on having to spend more and more on combating their 'customers' instead of putting original thought into making pr

    • Re:How broad? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by musikit ( 716987 )
      although i see what your saying what i believe they are "trying" to do is define a set of rules that canadian ISPs have to follow in order to be an ISP. I.E. every open socket's communication must be tracable from start to finish. that's to say that if you live in canada and you use your webbrowser to surf goatse then they will have enough log information to say to the US/canadian gov "Yup John Die at 123 Street did request that page at 1:13 am on JAn 1st 2004"

      IANAIA (ISP Admin) but is it possible to ope

      • Re:How broad? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mwood ( 25379 )
        I've toyed with the idea of setting up an ISP which would deliberately seek to be classified as a common carrier, precisely so that the rules are already spelled out and said ISP is *not allowed* to monitor its customers' traffic unless specifically ordered to by a judge. You have to keep plenty of logs on your service itself, but customers' business is (usually) theirs alone.

        It's not particularly to promote anonymity, which isn't that important to me, but simply to operate in a less ambiguous realm. I t

    • Re:How broad? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:26AM (#7627545)
      Wonder if they truly think about this. the RIAA and their equivalents worldwide can't all be so insanely silly and see that their distribution methods are so outdated that fewer and fewer people are using them. Could they?

      Of course they're not silly and yes they know their distribution method is outdated.

      But it's easier to try and kill off the alternatives than it is to change what has been your business model for the last 50+ years.

      To be honest, even if the price of songs was brought down to a sensible level and if you could bundle and you didn't have DRM - you would still see mass piracy. It happened back in the days when ZX Spectrum games were less than two pounds (3 dollars) and it will continue.

      You can't beat free. Even if people waste 2 hours getting something for free, they won't consider that time expended to be worth anything - rather than they saved x pounds/dollars.

    • The people who represent Canadian artists say everyone who has a hand in transmitting recorded music is liable.

      Taken to another level, in this case, that's like saying that everyone who has a hand in building a road should be liable for car bombings... So should auto manufacturers, and the different levels of state that own the roads... Sorry, that doesn't fly with me...
      • Telephones can be used during the commission of crimes. Like the irate soccer-mom who orders a hit over the phone to get rid of her daughter's cheerleading rival. So telephone companies should be ordered to monitor all content. That would involve an enormous investment in hardware and software to convert voice to text and then search it for mentions of criminal activity, but hey, that's the price we have to pay for security.

    • Now Wait A Minute (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jesrad ( 716567 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @09:48AM (#7628334) Journal
      Copyright Law takes its origin in the will to protect the revenues of authors / musicians / other artists, so that they have an incentive to create. Right ?

      Originally it protected the real authors from the misappropriation by others and ill-profiting from their works. Right ? This particular intent was first turned into a travesty when the middle-men started buying these rights from the authors to enforce it themselves. It even agravated when they launched the infamous "Work for hire" type contracts, where the author is totally deprived of authorship.

      Now it goes even further: they are expanding the travestied concept (based on an unnatural compromise between public domain and a need for incentives to create, originally) of copyright to leverage more and more control and extort more money from each side of the industry ?

      And, pray-tell, what will happen when the Associated Agents rule almighty on culture and distribution of information, and collect the Tax on Everything Digital ? All this in the name of a parody of an already flimsy concept of "copyright". Sheesh.
      • Copyright Law takes its origin in the will to protect the revenues of authors / musicians / other artists, so that they have an incentive to create. Right ?

        Only partly. It was actually created to balance the protection of the author with the rights of the consumers. Perpetual control by the author means they can keep the work from ever being expressed and keeping anyone from ever building from it, both which hinder progress. Essentially, any new creation would have to be revolutionary (unique), not evo

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • in canada? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by selfabuse ( 681350 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:05AM (#7627426)
    Now, I'm not 100% sure on this (and I didn't RTFA), but someone posted in a different article a while back (and got modded up) that due to the tax on blank CDRs, people in Canada could download music legally, so isn't this kind of a moot point?

    • Re:in canada? (Score:3, Informative)

      by iamplupp ( 728943 )
      thats the case here in sweden.
    • It wasn't a comment in response to an article, it was the article [slashdot.org] itself.

    • Re:in canada? (Score:5, Informative)

      by srw ( 38421 ) * on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:32AM (#7627576) Homepage
      Read:

      Canadian Copyright Act [justice.gc.ca]

      In particular, sections 80 thru 82 make it clear that we are already paying for the right to make private copies.

      • Re:in canada? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by AndroidCat ( 229562 )
        And this part makes it unclear as to how far lending an original to a friend who makes a copy can go:
        (2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following in relation to any of the things referred to in paragraphs (1)(a) to (c):

        (b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade;

    • The main key is that its for "private use".

      Now is making it available on my hd to everyone on my p2p network (including people I don't know virtually and non-virtually) really "private use"?
      • What's the difference between people you know and those you don't? About the privacy, I meant.

        The royalities paid on CD-Rs and other audio recording medias has been established recognizing there is no way to control the copies.

        The current court case should rather be seen as an initiative to extend the royalities to other audio media. They just don't care if it is private copies or not. They just want more money and they think ISPs should be liable for this like any CD-Rs manufacturer.

        I believe the privat

    • Re:in canada? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Stephen Samuel ( 106962 ) <samuel AT bcgreen DOT com> on Thursday December 04, 2003 @09:38AM (#7628223) Homepage Journal
      As far as I can tell, this story and the CTV story from Friday [slashdot.org] are the same story. What SOCAN appears to be doing is using a loophole. They're claiming that the ISP's use of (transparent) caches constitutes a copy of the music that should result in royalties. What this ignores is that most of what goes across the net isn't music... They're effectively asking for a backdoor patent on cache technologies.

      More interestingly, they're ignoring the fact that most caches are of web pages, while most music is (AFAIK) transferred by P2P, which is (I believe) rarely, if ever cached.

      If the music industry wins this case, ISPs would have the option of turning off their caches or paying a royalty of as high as to 10% of their income.

      • Let's presume for a second that we're ignoring P2P systems, just to focus on this "caching" issue.

        Isn't this pretty much the same as copying a file from a CD into RAM to be able to use it? Didn't Sony or someone already sue over this in the video game area (copies of games loaded into RAM, bad bad bad) and lose their case?

        From what I recall, it was a US court decision, but really, it's the same damn thing. You're not making a "copy" in the traditional sense, you're just temporarily holding the data to mak
        • From what I recall, it was a US court decision, but really, it's the same damn thing. You're not making a "copy" in the traditional sense,

          I agree with you, but big the question is "Does The Supreme Court agree with us?". From the CTV report [www.ctv.ca]:

          The Federal Court agreed with the Copyright Board that ISPs were indeed carriers or transmitters of content

          except when ISPs engaged in caching content to speed up the performance of their systems.

          (emphasis mine)

          The CBC [www.cbc.ca] report has a pointer to the actual Federa [fja.gc.ca]

      • With the obvious result all internet subscriptions will be increased by, at least, 10%. And given the fact you already pay 10% extra for the music, nobody will be longer willing to pay a cent for music. And the Music store should prepare to close very soon after such a judgement.

        Given the fact my internet subscription include all the music in all the world why should I buy a piece of plastic? Authors, artists, interprets, etc are now paid (in fact, only those having contracts with the Recording Industry re

    • Yes, it would absolutely seem to be a case of double dipping.

      I bet SOCAN are pissed off that their lobying for the CD levy in the first place has effectively made P2P and copying you're friends CD totally legal. Now that they've made that mistake, they're going to try and make another. Who in Canada would want to buy any music at all if they get this law through? Then hopefully their sales would drop to zero, and perhaps the rest of the world would get in on the action also.
    • This is a common interpretation of part of the Canadian Copyright Act (as another poster in this thread already linked to). However, this act protects the private copying of audio recordings. It is meant to protect someone who borrows a cd from a friend, and copies it onto a cdr, but the wording can be interpreted to mean any form of copying, as long as the person who owns the original is NOT the person doing the copying (I can copy my buddy's cd, but my buddy can't copy it for me).

      What this act does not

  • What's next, sue GM? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gryphon ( 28880 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:06AM (#7627428)
    Following SOCAN's logic, I guess we should sue General Motors the next time somebody uses a Chevy to rob a bank.

    • And sue gun manufacturers for criminals using them. Oh wait, apparently, some are already following that logic. This is a slippery slope that will be difficult to change because people see an "easy out" of personal responsibility. And those willing to use this "logic" in lawsuits see access to deeper pockets than those who are truley responsible. So, Here's my "what's next": What's next, sue the government for making roads that make it too easy for me to speed. I will be sending all of my speeding tic
    • It's an outrage. Every day, criminals use a network known as "the phone system" to commit crimes such as blackmail, theft, fraud, and planning to do other even worse crimes. The owners of this "phone system" should be held liable!

  • So... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:08AM (#7627440)

    We're obviously in a struggle right now trying to figure out the best techniques to ensure that they are compensated appropriately.'"

    As a Canadian, I already pay a copyright levy on cdrs, am I supposed to pay more to my isp now? Judging by the line above..I'd have to say it isnt completely out of the question.
    • I'm wondering, could the tax on CD-Rs create a black market in them?

      Also, what's the deal with people that legitimately use CD-Rs for backup purposes (ie, backing up databases of company customer data) paying taxes to support those who use them to burn copyrighted music? Although I guess it makes sense if you look at it as transfer payments in a larger "welfare state" view.
      • I'm wondering, could the tax on CD-Rs create a black market in them?

        That depends on whether CD-Rs cost that much less in the US than in Canada.

        Let's check out bestbuy.com and futureshop.ca (Futureshop is owned by Best Buy so prices should be similar).

        Most brands seem to sell spindles of 50. Sorting by price at bestbuy, it looks like Imation CDRs are cheapest at $15 USD. Futureshop's cheapest seems to be $22 CDN. According to xe.com, $15 USD = $19.70 CDN.

        You'd have to sell a lot of CDRs to make it worth

    • Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by satterth ( 464480 )

      As a Canadian, I already pay a copyright levy on cdrs, am I supposed to pay more to my isp now? Judging by the line above..I'd have to say it isnt completely out of the question.

      K, I don't have a problem with a Levy asigned to each internet use accross Canada. If i recall correctly they were only asking for 25cent a head per year. Is what bothers me is the 10% of advertising revenues they were also asking for. what the hell does advertising space have to do with music?

  • Just like SCO (Score:4, Interesting)

    by countach ( 534280 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:08AM (#7627444)
    They remind me of SCO. Try and blame everybody and sue everybody, and see what sticks. Just no integrity left in the business community it seems.

  • Criminals who use the phone (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ian 0x57 ( 688051 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:08AM (#7627447)
    So if two ppl plan a crime using a phone is the phone company partly to blame?? Of cource not.

  • SCAM Publishers? (Score:5, Funny)

    by thenextpresident ( 559469 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:08AM (#7627448) Homepage Journal
    Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada == SCAM Publishers of Canada

    Sorry, just found that mildly amusing.

    • There's also CUSS

      or Computer Users Stealing Songs.

      mildly amusing.

  • similar to gun manufacturer problems in the US (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sbuckhopper ( 12316 ) * on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:10AM (#7627458) Homepage Journal
    Occationally in the US there is a court case where the family of someone who's been murdered tries to sue the gun company. They never win. The major problem with this concept that the Canadian music industry is trying to pull a fast one is that if the enabling technology is legal then there is no justification to sue them for doing their job.

    So, for example, in the US it is legal to make and sell guns. The gun manufacturing companies, although are creating a dangerous tool, are not breaking any laws. If someone buys that gun and shoots someone else, they are violating the law, but there is no reason why the gun manufacturer should be held liable.

    If there is any logic in the Canadian supreme court, they will see that the ISP is just the enabling technology. The ISP is doing nothing illegal. They should not be held accountable. Yeah I know that this cannot be used as a precident in a Canadian court, but I think its more of a logical argument, not a setting of a precident.

    I also wonder how they think that they're going to collect from foreign ISPs.
    • Occationally in the US there is a court case where the family of someone who's been murdered tries to sue the gun company. They never win.

      Occationally in the US there is a court case where the family of someone who's died of cancer because they smoked cigarettes for 40 years tries to sue a cigarette company. They occasionally win, but AFAIK all of these multi-million dollar awards have been overturned on appeal. Still, that doesn't stop people from "playing the lottery" as it were...

    • Gun manufacturers and ISPs aren't exactly the same thing here. It is plausible to expect ISPs to do more to stem the use of file sharing for illegal purposes on their networks. It is not plausible to expect gun manufacturers to make bullets that only kill bad people.
    • I don't think it's quite so simple as "enabling technology". It is rather a question of causation, and if there is direct harm to society or its constituents due to negligence or a violation of regulations without due diligence, there may be a case. In the case of hand guns, I am inclined to believe they get away with selling guns that kill people precisely because guns are designed to kill people, and it is the user whom is acting harmfully against society.

      The flip side is the tobacco company who kills hu
      • Guns aren't designed to kill people. They are designed to accellerate a slug to high rate of speed, propell it out of the barrel in a predictable and repeatable trajectory, and cycle the next shell in as smoothly as possible. Saying guns are designed to kill people is like saying that computers are designed to read email. Both are general-purpose tools with several different applications. You are picking only one.
    • Look at the Winchester Mystery House [winchester...yhouse.com]. This victorian mansion was built by the heiress of the Winchester (as in the gun manufacturer) family and felt compelled to build a house that was open to all the spirits of all the people killed by her family's rifles. They also routinely hire mediums to figure out the wishes of the spirits, and add onto the house accordingly, giving some very bizzare results.
  • Check out the story over at Access Copyright [accesscopyright.ca], a clearinghouse agency for writers and visual artists in Canada that compensates these creators in cases where "their work is copied, whether it's being photocopied, scanned or downloaded." This is done through licensing fees which, in turn, is often collected through levying on photocopying (such as an extra fee slipped into the charges on a university's photocopy machine).

    It's not the individual users who log in and pay up each time they photocopy from a li

  • ISPs should fight back (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nattt ( 568106 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:10AM (#7627462)
    If the worst happens and SOCAN gets their own way, the ISP needs to fight back in any way possible, from charging outrageous fees to SOCAN and any other music body using the internet. If they can't let us have our internet free, then they should be paying a lot for it also...

    To think of an ISP as anything other than a carrier opens up such a big can of worms that to do so would be disasterous. Canada has a very distributed population, and the internet is necessary here for communication and business. This stupid SOCAN idea is anti-business. Perhaps businesses should also band together to do anything possible to screw SOCAN and their musicians into the ground. After all, we're paying the stupid CD levy for all the source code we back up.

  • You had me at "exploitation" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joebagodonuts ( 561066 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `lnrkmc'> on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:15AM (#7627483) Homepage Journal
    The rest of the Spurgeon quote seems so reasonable. Why do people have to exaggerate and make things seem so dire? I know,I know. Money. To me it's just dishonest. I get tired of the fact that everyting is an con, or a sell of some sort.

    If a musician is being exploited, the publisher is the most likely culprit. Somehow, this is twisted and suddenly it's the people using the internet to download files? Please.

    • Re:You had me at "exploitation" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ubergrendle ( 531719 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:50AM (#7627676) Journal
      As the article submitter, I have a few issues with what they're trying to accomplish.

      1. Trying to make an ISP liable for copyright infringement, thus jeopardising their 'common carrier' protection. In Canada, cable and telephone are pretty much monopolies. I can see potential overhead being mandated through this case which will result in an industry consolidation -- ISPs can't make it on their own anymore with all the administrative overhead, so get gobbled up by traditional media companies that can provide them with protection.

      2. Canadian media is already over-regulated IMHO. CANCON insists that certain amounts of Canadian home-grown content are given air-play. I'd hate to see SOCAM try to push this onto the internet.

      3. I already pay licenses for "personal use" copying of media through my CD, cassette, VHS tape, taxes.

      4. Unilaterally demanding foreign countries/ISPs support a custom Canadian copyright licensing scheme is ludicrous, and arrogant. It is also the best way to kill off Canadian music.

  • Creativity roxx0rs, d00dz! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Channard ( 693317 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:16AM (#7627487) Journal
    'Creative people should be compensated for the use and exploitation of their music.'

    Yep, because you can't get much more creative and original than Britney Spears and her fellow artists. I also notice that the words 'rewarded appropriately' were used instead of 'rewarded fairly.'

  • Far-reaching (Score:5, Funny)

    by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:25AM (#7627533) Homepage Journal
    "The people who represent Canadian artists say everyone who has a hand in transmitting recorded music is liable."

    Watch out, Monster Cable [monstercable.com]!

  • Who's SCAMMING Who?! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by webzombie ( 262030 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:25AM (#7627535)
    I AM CANADIAN and I and so f@#$'n tired of these poor starving artists who claim to be suffering so much because people are downloading and/or sharing their music...PLEASE get over yourselves

    I have a hard time believing that all but the very best... maybe 10% of Canadian artists are being traded, even moderately.

    And this tax the ISP for others is truly Canadian and just as f@#$'n stupid.

    Canadians pay more taxes to "protect" Canadian businesses that peddled in international television signals, music distribution and now possibly internet access... talk about a racket!
    • Canada also needs to protect the revenue of the thousands of artists who contribute to society's well being by improving the outdoor environment in cities - buskers. The traditional model of people voluntarily paying buskers has been damaged due to the proliferation of rapid transit making people less likely to compensate the rain soaked guitar player at the bus station.

      These people are also artists, so Canada should enact a tax on rapid transit to replace their diminishing revenue.

      -AD

  • A basic question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by otmar ( 32000 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:28AM (#7627552) Homepage
    "We're obviously in a struggle right now trying to figure out the best techniques to ensure that they are compensated appropriately."

    Whenever I hear these statements, I'm wondering how much of that is "someone rights are not infringed" and how much is "someones business model must be protected".

    There is no god-given right to make a living off whatever you choose to be your profession. Circumstances can change, and your business model can become unviable. Facts of life 101. Everybody has to deal with that (cf. type-setters, weavers, ...). Thus any argument similar "those poor XXX, YYY destroys their income, thus YYY must be banned" is IMHO just wrong.

    The correct approach is to look whether somebody need legal help to ascertain his right to the fruits of his labor. That he's not wronged in the legal sense of the word. Whether his income would be enough to sustain his life is not the court's business.

    If the state decides that it really wants a certain tradecraft to be a viable business, then that's a purely political question (cf. farm subsidies, military spending, art funding) and should not be decided by a court of law.

    • "Creative people should be compensated for the use and exploitation of their music ... We're obviously in a struggle right now trying to figure out the best techniques to ensure that they are compensated appropriately."

      The RIAA at least is already ensuring that "creative people" are compensated for the "exploitation" of ther music. Compensated poorly for the most part, compensated ridiculously well in some (few) cases.

      But what bothers me most about this is that, as usual, the artists are the ones menti

  • From the Article... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Joel Carr ( 693662 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:32AM (#7627569)
    'The people who represent Canadian artists say everyone who has a hand in transmitting recorded music is liable.

    Perhaps it's just me, but wouldn't this fault the recording industry as well? After all, they are the ones who have effectively transmitted the music from the studio to the average Joe listener. The average Joe has then ripped the CD, made it available on the internet, where it has then been downloaded. Hence the recording industry has had a hand in transmitting recorded music.

    ---
  • We need to know who these people are! I for one wouldn't want to be living next to some weird freak who spends his time downloading fucking Celine Dion and Brian Adams tracks!!
    • At least not according to the doorknobs who decide what "Canadian Content" is, even though he was born about a mile from my office.

      Apparently, "Canadian Content" has nothing to do with "Music by Canadians", it has to do with where the album was engineered. Go figure. The CC rule is *supposed* to protect our culture, but in reality, it is just protecting the pocketbooks of SCAMP.

  • Remember ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by IamGarageGuy 2 ( 687655 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:40AM (#7627623) Journal
    This is the same supreme court that ruled that Canadians can't get American satellite signals even when willing to pay for them. We are forced to only view Canadian content even when we are willing to go to extremes and set up an american PO box and pay american dollars. This is not a resonably thinking court. Don't think for a second that the right thing will be done here. I wouldn't be surprised if they came down with a ruling that decided that Candaians couldn't download any foreign music and if they did you must pay a levy. They will make a ruling that has no way of being enforced and spend millions trying to enforce it. Rational thinking has nothing to do with it!!!!

  • Here in Canada... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by a whoabot ( 706122 )
    Here in Canada we put a relatively large focus on supporting Canadian artists, and culture and media in general. Some of our taxes and levies(like on CD-Rs) help fund arts groups and artists, and this is somewhat in that line, I feel.

    Even our big media group, the CBC, recieves government funding. I for one I'm glad for it. Sure, it's socialism. But it's just a touch. And when I dial in the CBC Two late at night there's always the most interesting music on. We pay a bit more in taxes and get a lot back
    • The part that ticks me off about the CBC is that they are often so utterly, blatantly biased during interviews etc. Why should I have to here "the one" political view? I used to listen to Radio One all the time, until I got sick of listening to the interviewer or host jumping all over someone who didn't agree with them. They always take the far left, anti-business view of things. And I'm sick of hearing it, but mostly I'm sicking being forced to pay so that people can here it.

      I know that the "left medi
      • Say what you will, but I would rather have a blatantly biased media than one which *claims* to be "Fair and Balanced" but which is anything but.

        If a story is really important, I will watch it on CBC, CNBC, FOX, CNN, CTV Newsnet and the BBC. Average all of them together, and you will arrive at something resembling the truth.

        Unless, of course, an Iraqi Blogger is contradicting all of them.
  • If RIAA and SOCAN spent the money promoting a positive image and finding talented artist instead of sueing people they would be far better off.

    Why do you think people love downloading free music?? it's all about sticking it to the MAN!

    People that are downloading that crap wouldn't be buying it, it's sort of like software pirates who have $30 million of stolen software on their system.. the would never buy that software in the first place so it's not a loss, actually most can barely afford to make rent mos
  • since i believe that taxes are being collected from media and now isps, to fund those copyright holders, then i think it will now be legal for users to share files over the network because they have paid for it already through taxes.

  • Who gets 'compensated'? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by schon ( 31600 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @09:09AM (#7627901)
    First of all, the blank media levy is not 'compensating' artists - to this date, not one cent of the levy has been given to record labels, let alone artists. And if/when the money does get handed down to the music companies, what makes anyone think that they will actually pass it along to the artists? It's been awhile since I saw a record contract, but that's never been a line item - it's not a unit sale, so the artists won't see a dime.

    Second of all, should this go into effect, why should music companies be compensated, when this affects everyone who makes/produces anything that could be traded? Will there be a separate levy for software companies? Book publishers? Movie studios? Or will these other industries be given part of the existing levy? (You can bet not - like the blank media levy, any law will probably specify music companies only.)

    This is so fundamentally flawed it's unbelieveable.

  • Why just musicians? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tomstdenis ( 446163 )
    I'm a starting struggling author as well as a software developer. Should I not receive a "payment" for potential software piracy?

    I already pay a levy on CD-R material [which I never use to pirate audio] that goes to the music industry.

    Tom
    • No, you should not receive a "payment" for "potential" software piracy. But you should join or create an organization for software developers and just like SOCAN get your own levy against CD-R's for personal copies. Then wait a few days and then go after ISP's for another levy.
  • Stop being stupid. Support the artists? Ha sure as if we don't know where that money goes. In the Middle East and Asia all the records are pirated and yet the artists have no problem bragging about the millions they make. Yes, they do make millions, even though there records are pirated.

    If you wanna make money, stop selling crappy music. Heck nowadays there's no music worthy enough for my bandwidth or my 99cents.

    If they win there case I'll make sure to create a porn site and sue the ISP's because of poten

  • Ho Hum (Score:2, Insightful)

    by wrax ( 570032 )
    I love it that people are getting worked up about this. The Supreme Court is going to look at this and say that since Canadians are already paying a levi on all blank recording media that gets sold in the country they cannot be charged an additional tax on the ISP they use to access the internet.

    The onus on the Recording Association to prove that the main purpose of the ISP's is to facilitate illegal downloading of music is simply too broad to be logically proven. Most sane people (which I'd hope a Supr

  • Another charge for something I don't use? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GoofyBoy ( 44399 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @09:49AM (#7628345) Journal

    I don't download music. I do listen to Internet radio but I assume that royalties are already paid for since these are well known/popular radios stations.

    So if my ISP does pass on the any charges, then I am paying for something that I don't do. (They might not either way if they develop some niffty technology which can tell if I download an mp3 or not (but then I question it since there are many ways of fooling it)).

    Why shouldn't I download music? I am paying for it regardless.
    • So if my ISP does pass on the any charges, then I am paying for something that I don't do. ... Why shouldn't I download music? I am paying for it regardless.
      Exactly! In fact, you should download all that you can! It's morally justified. Fill up CDR's worth of music (artists already compensated) and stop buying CDs from stores. Fill up your hard drives with full-length movies (filmmakers will already be compensated) and stop renting movies.

  • Great! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig DOT hogger AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday December 04, 2003 @09:49AM (#7628350) Journal
    This will legalize P2P sharing just as well as it legalizes CD-copying [cb-cda.gc.ca].
  • If SOCAN wins this case, and I end up paying an extra $50/year for my internet connection, I think it's time to buy a CD burner, and install gnutella. I use my 'net connection for computing, not compiling, but if I'm gonna be charged by the music industry for being connected, then I think I should be making the most of it.

    There's a lot of music that I'd like to download. So far, I've been restrained in the matter. Now I'm gonna have me some fun.

  • Yeah right. The PC police are out in full force and it's only getting worse here. Now, you can actually be locked up or forced to pay damanges [nationalreview.com] if the authorities here don't agree with your point of view. It's scary.

    I'm shocked more people aren't aware of what's going on in this country. If this keeps up, I'm moving to the USA.

  • Equating this to the software industry (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CaptCanuk ( 245649 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @10:40AM (#7628839) Journal
    Quotes like this "Creative people should be compensated for the use and exploitation of their music" irk me so. Replace music with the word software and I'm more likely to see why authors should get compensated, but oddly it's the music industry that is protected wholeheartedly by the law. In the software industry, if someone pirates your software, it generally is an exact duplicate of the purchaseable item (minus the copy-right protection and adding in some advertising). In the music industry, if someone distributes a lossy version of your song (for the most part, it's the labels song) or recorded off the radio (difference between this and taping shows on your VCR and sending it to others is what?) you have to pay - and not only pay for the indiscretion, but also for the potential indiscretion thanks to CD-r levies.

    Where is the equality in that? Why is the music industry so favoured? You haven't seen ISP's fined for the transferral of illegal software; up until two years ago, my ISP used to have a mirror of alt.binaries.warez among its other newsgroups!

    For that matter, what constitutes use? How much of the file must be copied to be considered an illegal use? Almost all OS's will copy a file and then delete it to safely move a file from one partition to another - does this situation insinuate 2 copyright violations?

    Most of these cases seem to be that of "guilt without evidence". A filename does not an illegal download make, nor a hash value a confirmation.
  • Being Canadian, if I end up paying the tax, it makes it legal (partly why they want to legalize drugs - tax money!).

    So it's legal to distribute music. All I need now is a pay service for KaZaA and other p2p users to simply send their music to me, and I'll send them back, therefore legalizing the music. I paid the tax, turning the formerly illegal music legal. There's a real possibility to make some money offering little more than FTP services to legalize music by paying the tax.

    Damn, I should've done the
  • As a SOCAN member, I was horrified by the news of their lawsuit with the ISP's. It *may* have been relevant three years ago, when people signing up for high-speed internet were likely doing so to get onto Napster 1.0 and other "file sharing" networks. It may have been fair if things did not change as fast as they do. But SOCAN is hopelessly living in the past. here is the full text of the letter i sent them: My name is Sam Blue, owner of independant label Artefakt. I am writing on behalf of myself and Kim

  • Given the trade relations, this case should have consequences far outside of Canada proper.

    Oh yes, the consequences of Canadian trade relations. I can just see it now. Prime Minister Chretien on behalf of the Canadian people and industries attempts to complain to their neighbor and largest "trading partner".

    Chretien: 'allo? 'allo? We needs these monies!

    Neighbor: (no response)

    Chretien: 'allo? We are angry!

    Neighbor: (no reponse)

    Chretien: (to the media) We weel take dis to dee highest w

  • Making everybody who has a hand in transporting "stolen" music liable would set a precedent making truck drivers, warehousers, retailers and everybody along the way liable for anything illegal that is shipped or stored anywhere. IANAL but this seems like an absolute no-brainer to me.

    The irony is that copyright is not even "property," it is a "right" that is granted by a government and temporarily "held," not "owned." Here we have record companies, first conning the public into thinking of copyrights as pro
  • I work for a small Canadian ISP, and this ruling would affect us directly. There's actually more to the insanity of this lawsuit than we get from this article.

    They also want to grandfather this ruling, so that not only would we pay 10% *after* the ruling, but also 10% of revenues for the past 8 years. This is a massive problem. Not only does it mean we'd have to increase our prices (ISPs work on such small margins that 10% would probably eat up all our profits and then some. In fact, some ISPs like Shaw Ca

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