The RIAA can't touch us - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

hobo · 08-21-2003, 06:53 PM

Canadians that is.

LINK

I just found this a few minutes ago.

I also find it interesting that 50% of Canadian Internet users are on broadband Internet while only 20% of American Internet users are. Plus I remember reading something a while back putting Canada at #1 or close to it for the percentage of the population that has an Internet connection. I guess Canada is an Internet user's (and file swapper's) dream come true

HeAtHeN · 08-21-2003, 07:20 PM

At least we'll still be able to swap The Hip and Our Lady Peace.

HeyAgain · 08-21-2003, 07:43 PM

The only thing we will face will be a "education program message" like the one below.

"Warning

"It appears that you are offering copyrighted music to others from your computer. While we appreciate your love of music, please be aware that sharing copyrighted music on the Internet without permission from the copyright owner is illegal. When you do so, you hurt the artists, songwriters and musicians who create the music and the other talented individuals who are involved in bringing you the music.

"More than 40,000 Canadians work hard producing and supporting the music you appear to enjoy, including producers, engineers, retailers, music publishers, distributors, manufacturers, record companies, concert promoters and broadcasters.

"When you break the law, you risk legal penalties. There is a simple way to avoid that risk: Don't distribute music to others on a file-sharing system like this. For further information, please go to www.cria.ca.

"Remember that you need music and music needs you."

spectre · 08-21-2003, 07:53 PM

The article for those that don't like clicking links.
<hr>
Blame Canada

A desperate American recording industry is waging a fierce fight against digital copyright infringement seemingly oblivious to the fact that, for practical purposes, it lost the digital music sharing fight over five years ago. In Canada.

"On March 19, 1998, Part VIII of the (Canadian) Copyright Act dealing with private copying came into force. Until that time, copying any sound recording for almost any purpose infringed copyright, although, in practice, the prohibition was largely unenforceable. The amendment to the Act legalized copying of sound recordings of musical works onto audio recording media for the private use of the person who makes the copy (referred to as "private copying"). In addition, the amendment made provision for the imposition of a levy on blank audio recording media to compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright in eligible sound recordings being copied for private use."

-- Copyright Board of Canada: Fact Sheet: Private Copying 1999-2000 Decision

The Copyright Board of Canada administers the Copyright Act and sets the amount of the levies on blank recording media and determines which media will have levies imposed. Five years ago this seemed like a pretty good deal for the music industry: $0.77 CDN for a blank CD and .29 a blank tape, whether used for recording music or not. Found money for the music moguls who had been pretty disturbed that some of their product was being burned onto CDs. To date over 70 million dollars has been collected through the levy and there is a good possibility the levy will be raised and extended to MP3 players, flash memory cards and recordable DVDs sometime in 2003.

While hardware vendors whine about the levy, consumers seem fairly indifferent. Why? Arguably because the levy is fairly invisible - just another tax in an overtaxed country. And because it makes copying music legal in Canada.

A year before Shawn Fanning invented Napster, these amendments to Canada's Copyright Act were passed with earnest lobbying from the music business. The amendments were really about home taping. The rather cumbersome process of ripping a CD and then burning a copy was included as afterthought to deal with this acme of the digital revolution. The drafters and the music industry lobbyists never imagined full-on P2P access.

As the RIAA wages its increasingly desperate campaign of litigation in terrorum to try to take down the largest American file sharers on the various P2P networks, it seems to be utterly unaware of the radically different status of private copying in Canada.

This is a fatal oversight, because P2P networks are international. While the Digital Millennium Copyright Act may make it illegal to share copyright material in America, the Canadian Copyright Act expressly allows exactly the sort of copying which is at the base of the P2P revolution.

In fact, you could not have designed a law which more perfectly captures the peer to peer process. "Private copying" is a term of art in the Act. In Canada, if I own a CD and you borrow it and make a copy of it that is legal private copying; however, if I make you a copy of that same CD and give it to you that would be infringement. Odd, but ideal for protecting file sharers.

Every song on my hard drive comes from a CD in my collection or from a CD in someone else's collection which I have found on a P2P network. In either case I will have made the copy and will claim safe harbor under the "private copying" provision. If you find that song in my shared folder and make a copy this will also be "private copying." I have not made you a copy, rather you have downloaded the song yourself.

The premise of the RIAA's litigation is to go after the "supernodes," the people who have thousands, even tens of thousands of songs on their drives and whose big bandwidth allows massive sharing. The music biz has had some success bringing infringement claims under the DMCA. Critically, that success and the success of the current campaign hinges on it being a violation of the law to "share" music. At this point, in the United States, that is a legally contested question and that contest may take several years to fully play out in the Courts.

RIAA spokesperson Amanda Collins seemed unaware of the situation in Canada. "Our goal is deterrence. We are focused on uploaders in the US. Filing lawsuits against individuals making files available in the US."

Which will be a colossal waste of time because in Canada it is expressly legal to share music. If the RIAA were to somehow succeed in shutting down every "supernode" in America all this would do is transfer the traffic to the millions of file sharers in Canada. And, as 50% of Canadians on the net have broadband (as compared to 20% of Americans) Canadian file sharers are likely to be able to meet the demand.

The Canada Hole in the RIAA's strategic thinking is not likely to close. While Canadians are not very keen about seeing the copyright levy extended to other media or increased, there is not much political traction in the issue. There is no political interest at all in revisiting the Copyright Act. Any lobbying attempt by the RIAA to change the copyright rules in Canada would be met with a howl of anger from nationalist Canadians who are not willing to further reduce Canada's sovereignty. (These folks are still trying to get over NAFTA.)

Nor are there any plausible technical fixes short of banning any connections from American internet users to servers located in Canada.

As the RIAA's "sue your customer" campaign begins to run into stiffening opposition and serious procedural obstacles it may be time to think about a "Plan B". A small levy on storage media, say a penny a megabyte, would be more lucrative than trying to extract 60 million dollars from a music obsessed, file sharing, thirteen year-old.

If American consumers objected -- well, the music biz could always follow Southpark's lead and burst into a chorus of "Blame Canada". Hey, we can take it?.We'll even lend you Anne Murray.

<hr>

juanvaldes · 08-21-2003, 08:06 PM

well of course. {RI/MP}AA. the AA part means Association of America.

HeAtHeN · 08-21-2003, 08:19 PM

Damn I love Canada....

I'm so happy I moved here from the UK.

I mean we almost have legal pot, gay marriage is legal and now this....

YaWhateva · 08-21-2003, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by hobo
I also find it interesting that 50% of Canadian Internet users are on broadband Internet while only 20% of American Internet users are. Plus I remember reading something a while back putting Canada at #1 or close to it for the percentage of the population that has an Internet connection. I guess Canada is an Internet user's (and file swapper's) dream come true

You do know that there is something like less people in Canada than there is in Los Angeles right? Of course your per capita for most things is a lot more. Oh there is also less crime per capita in Canada, but there is also a whole lot less people than the US has. And like someone said, of course the RIAA cant touch you, you arent in America.

HeAtHeN · 08-21-2003, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by YaWhateva
You do know that there is something like less people in Canada than there is in Los Angeles right? Of course your per capita for most things is a lot more. Oh there is also less crime per capita in Canada, but there is also a whole lot less people than the US has. And like someone said, of course the RIAA cant touch you, you arent in America.

We have less people??

C'mon now... we have 31,600,000 people in Canada.... L.A must be one huge city!!!!

Nad Adam · 08-22-2003, 08:12 AM

I've never met a canadian but I like the country anyways because they have the right attitude.

Dragonlich · 08-22-2003, 10:00 AM

Pah, the Dutch equivalent of the RIAA can't touch me either... The reason? Every time they want to know the personal data accompanying my IP addy, they're walking into the brick wall called "privacy".

If they ask my ISP, they'll be told to fuck off; if they hack their way to the info, any evidence will be illegal, and they'll be charged with (amongst other things) violation of privacy.

Thraeryn · 08-22-2003, 11:00 AM

See? I like the DUTCH attitude.

I just can't get behind anything Canadian anymore. Except Swollen Members and Big Sugar.

Othello · 08-22-2003, 01:18 PM

Yay for Canada

I never understood how these companies could push the recordable products and devices while crying bloody murder that people are using the products for that explicid purpose.

HeAtHeN · 08-22-2003, 01:20 PM

Yay for Big Sugar getting a mention

GremlinDelirium · 08-22-2003, 07:25 PM

Thats funny... We already know file sharing will never die. Hurray for Canada for writing a good law that the US should adopt. Skrew da DMCA!!!

My real question though is where is the MPAA with fighting movie traders??

MSD · 08-22-2003, 11:07 PM

The MPAA is basically waiting to see how the RIAA does and passing the time by putting realistically-sized dummy files on p2p networks.

juanvaldes · 08-22-2003, 11:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HeAtHeN
We have less people??

C'mon now... we have 31,600,000 people in Canada.... L.A must be one huge city!!!!

LA is indeed a large area (tons of cities) but it's not that big. All of California on the other hand, is.

m0rpheus · 08-23-2003, 12:22 AM

Ah it's good to be a canuck

Seriously though would any one notice a blank CD costing an extra buck to suppliment money that may (or may not) be lost by the music industry?
Of course not. It's a hell of alot more practical, not to mention pisses of your target audience a whole lot less, than trying to sue every teenager in the US with some MP3's on their computer.
I remember when this law came about and my friends and I were thrilled because it made burning CD's 100% legal, as the artists and companies responsible were payed through the tax.

oblar · 08-23-2003, 08:03 AM

actually i would notice a blank cd costing around $0.50 american more since I generally buy my CDs for about 20$ for 100 or possibly even less than 20$. You had 50$ mor eand I would notice. Although the private copying is indeed nice.

Othello · 08-23-2003, 09:11 AM

A 50 disc spindle goes for around $18 here so it's not really a big burden when you buy the cds in bulk.

08-21-2003, 06:53 PM	#1 (permalink)
hobo Archangel of Change	The RIAA can't touch us Canadians that is. LINK I just found this a few minutes ago. I also find it interesting that 50% of Canadian Internet users are on broadband Internet while only 20% of American Internet users are. Plus I remember reading something a while back putting Canada at #1 or close to it for the percentage of the population that has an Internet connection. I guess Canada is an Internet user's (and file swapper's) dream come true

08-21-2003, 07:53 PM	#4 (permalink)
spectre Junkie	The article for those that don't like clicking links. <hr> Blame Canada A desperate American recording industry is waging a fierce fight against digital copyright infringement seemingly oblivious to the fact that, for practical purposes, it lost the digital music sharing fight over five years ago. In Canada. "On March 19, 1998, Part VIII of the (Canadian) Copyright Act dealing with private copying came into force. Until that time, copying any sound recording for almost any purpose infringed copyright, although, in practice, the prohibition was largely unenforceable. The amendment to the Act legalized copying of sound recordings of musical works onto audio recording media for the private use of the person who makes the copy (referred to as "private copying"). In addition, the amendment made provision for the imposition of a levy on blank audio recording media to compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright in eligible sound recordings being copied for private use." -- Copyright Board of Canada: Fact Sheet: Private Copying 1999-2000 Decision The Copyright Board of Canada administers the Copyright Act and sets the amount of the levies on blank recording media and determines which media will have levies imposed. Five years ago this seemed like a pretty good deal for the music industry: $0.77 CDN for a blank CD and .29 a blank tape, whether used for recording music or not. Found money for the music moguls who had been pretty disturbed that some of their product was being burned onto CDs. To date over 70 million dollars has been collected through the levy and there is a good possibility the levy will be raised and extended to MP3 players, flash memory cards and recordable DVDs sometime in 2003. While hardware vendors whine about the levy, consumers seem fairly indifferent. Why? Arguably because the levy is fairly invisible - just another tax in an overtaxed country. And because it makes copying music legal in Canada. A year before Shawn Fanning invented Napster, these amendments to Canada's Copyright Act were passed with earnest lobbying from the music business. The amendments were really about home taping. The rather cumbersome process of ripping a CD and then burning a copy was included as afterthought to deal with this acme of the digital revolution. The drafters and the music industry lobbyists never imagined full-on P2P access. As the RIAA wages its increasingly desperate campaign of litigation in terrorum to try to take down the largest American file sharers on the various P2P networks, it seems to be utterly unaware of the radically different status of private copying in Canada. This is a fatal oversight, because P2P networks are international. While the Digital Millennium Copyright Act may make it illegal to share copyright material in America, the Canadian Copyright Act expressly allows exactly the sort of copying which is at the base of the P2P revolution. In fact, you could not have designed a law which more perfectly captures the peer to peer process. "Private copying" is a term of art in the Act. In Canada, if I own a CD and you borrow it and make a copy of it that is legal private copying; however, if I make you a copy of that same CD and give it to you that would be infringement. Odd, but ideal for protecting file sharers. Every song on my hard drive comes from a CD in my collection or from a CD in someone else's collection which I have found on a P2P network. In either case I will have made the copy and will claim safe harbor under the "private copying" provision. If you find that song in my shared folder and make a copy this will also be "private copying." I have not made you a copy, rather you have downloaded the song yourself. The premise of the RIAA's litigation is to go after the "supernodes," the people who have thousands, even tens of thousands of songs on their drives and whose big bandwidth allows massive sharing. The music biz has had some success bringing infringement claims under the DMCA. Critically, that success and the success of the current campaign hinges on it being a violation of the law to "share" music. At this point, in the United States, that is a legally contested question and that contest may take several years to fully play out in the Courts. RIAA spokesperson Amanda Collins seemed unaware of the situation in Canada. "Our goal is deterrence. We are focused on uploaders in the US. Filing lawsuits against individuals making files available in the US." Which will be a colossal waste of time because in Canada it is expressly legal to share music. If the RIAA were to somehow succeed in shutting down every "supernode" in America all this would do is transfer the traffic to the millions of file sharers in Canada. And, as 50% of Canadians on the net have broadband (as compared to 20% of Americans) Canadian file sharers are likely to be able to meet the demand. The Canada Hole in the RIAA's strategic thinking is not likely to close. While Canadians are not very keen about seeing the copyright levy extended to other media or increased, there is not much political traction in the issue. There is no political interest at all in revisiting the Copyright Act. Any lobbying attempt by the RIAA to change the copyright rules in Canada would be met with a howl of anger from nationalist Canadians who are not willing to further reduce Canada's sovereignty. (These folks are still trying to get over NAFTA.) Nor are there any plausible technical fixes short of banning any connections from American internet users to servers located in Canada. As the RIAA's "sue your customer" campaign begins to run into stiffening opposition and serious procedural obstacles it may be time to think about a "Plan B". A small levy on storage media, say a penny a megabyte, would be more lucrative than trying to extract 60 million dollars from a music obsessed, file sharing, thirteen year-old. If American consumers objected -- well, the music biz could always follow Southpark's lead and burst into a chorus of "Blame Canada". Hey, we can take it?.We'll even lend you Anne Murray. <hr> __________________ "Fuck these chains No goddamn slave I will be different" ~ Machine Head

08-22-2003, 08:12 AM	#9 (permalink)
Nad Adam Psycho Location: Sweden	I've never met a canadian but I like the country anyways because they have the right attitude. __________________ Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. - Psalms 137:9

08-22-2003, 07:25 PM	#14 (permalink)
GremlinDelirium Insane Location: Pullman, WA	Thats funny... We already know file sharing will never die. Hurray for Canada for writing a good law that the US should adopt. Skrew da DMCA!!! My real question though is where is the MPAA with fighting movie traders?? __________________ Go Cougs! ~WSU~

08-23-2003, 12:22 AM	#17 (permalink)
m0rpheus bad craziness Location: Guelph, Ontario	Ah it's good to be a canuck Seriously though would any one notice a blank CD costing an extra buck to suppliment money that may (or may not) be lost by the music industry? Of course not. It's a hell of alot more practical, not to mention pisses of your target audience a whole lot less, than trying to sue every teenager in the US with some MP3's on their computer. I remember when this law came about and my friends and I were thrilled because it made burning CD's 100% legal, as the artists and companies responsible were payed through the tax. __________________ "it never got weird enough for me." - Hunter S. Thompson

08-21-2003, 07:43 PM	#3 (permalink)
HeyAgain Psycho	The only thing we will face will be a "education program message" like the one below. "Warning "It appears that you are offering copyrighted music to others from your computer. While we appreciate your love of music, please be aware that sharing copyrighted music on the Internet without permission from the copyright owner is illegal. When you do so, you hurt the artists, songwriters and musicians who create the music and the other talented individuals who are involved in bringing you the music. "More than 40,000 Canadians work hard producing and supporting the music you appear to enjoy, including producers, engineers, retailers, music publishers, distributors, manufacturers, record companies, concert promoters and broadcasters. "When you break the law, you risk legal penalties. There is a simple way to avoid that risk: Don't distribute music to others on a file-sharing system like this. For further information, please go to www.cria.ca. "Remember that you need music and music needs you."

08-21-2003, 08:06 PM	#5 (permalink)
juanvaldes Banned Location: shittown, CA	well of course. {RI/MP}AA. the AA part means Association of America.

08-22-2003, 10:00 AM	#10 (permalink)
Dragonlich 42, baby! Location: The Netherlands	Pah, the Dutch equivalent of the RIAA can't touch me either... The reason? Every time they want to know the personal data accompanying my IP addy, they're walking into the brick wall called "privacy". If they ask my ISP, they'll be told to fuck off; if they hack their way to the info, any evidence will be illegal, and they'll be charged with (amongst other things) violation of privacy.

08-22-2003, 11:00 AM	#11 (permalink)
Thraeryn Loser	See? I like the DUTCH attitude. I just can't get behind anything Canadian anymore. Except Swollen Members and Big Sugar.

08-22-2003, 01:18 PM	#12 (permalink)
Othello Upright Location: Toronto	Yay for Canada I never understood how these companies could push the recordable products and devices while crying bloody murder that people are using the products for that explicid purpose.

08-22-2003, 11:07 PM	#15 (permalink)
MSD The sky calls to us ... Super Moderator Location: CT	The MPAA is basically waiting to see how the RIAA does and passing the time by putting realistically-sized dummy files on p2p networks.

08-23-2003, 08:03 AM	#18 (permalink)
oblar Über-Rookie Location: No longer, D.C	actually i would notice a blank cd costing around $0.50 american more since I generally buy my CDs for about 20$ for 100 or possibly even less than 20$. You had 50$ mor eand I would notice. Although the private copying is indeed nice. __________________ "All that we can do is just survive. .All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive." - Rush

08-23-2003, 09:11 AM	#19 (permalink)
Othello Upright Location: Toronto	A 50 disc spindle goes for around $18 here so it's not really a big burden when you buy the cds in bulk.