Post Tagged with: "music industry"

The Toronto Music Industry Town Hall

Tonight the government held its second copyright town hall.  Only it wasn't really a copyright townhall in the sense of bringing the community together to talk copyright in an open and balanced manner.  Instead, the music industry stacked the room to such a degree that little else was discussed.  There […]

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August 27, 2009 97 comments News

The Toronto Music Industry Town Hall

Tonight the government held its second copyright town hall.  Only it wasn't really a copyright townhall in the sense of bringing the community together to talk copyright in an open and balanced manner.  Instead, the music industry stacked the room to such a degree that little else was discussed.  There […]

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August 27, 2009 Comments are Disabled Stop CDMCA

Globe and Mail Launches the Download Decade

The Globe and Mail has launched an ambitious and exciting five-part series called the Download Decade.  Part one focuses on Napster with further segments planned over the next two weeks on business models, copyright laws, and more.  There are lots of older articles (including one of mine), podcasts and video […]

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May 10, 2009 1 comment News

Masnick on the Music Industry Mindset

Mike Masnick of TechDirt reports on the music industry's mindset based on comments at the MidemNet conference in France.

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January 21, 2009 Comments are Disabled News

The Music Industry’s Digital Reversal

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) opens by noting that Canadians focused on hockey success and economic doom-and-gloom over the past month may have missed a series of events that suggest a dramatic shift for the recording industry.  For much of the past decade, the industry has relied on three pillars to combat peer-to-peer file sharing – lawsuits, locks, and legislation.  

The lawsuits, which began in 2003, resulted in suits against more than 35,000 alleged file sharers in the United States.  The locks, which refers to digital locks that seek to impose copy-controls on music files, was a requirement for online services such as iTunes before it was given the green light, while the lobbying for legislative reforms to support the use of copy-controls led Canada to introduce the failed Bill C-61.

In a matter of weeks, the foundation of each of these pillars has either crumbled or shown serious signs of cracking.

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January 12, 2009 8 comments Columns