Archive for March, 2011

CRIAonC32

criaonc32.pdf

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March 1, 2011 Comments are Disabled General

CRIA Breaks From Creator Groups and Indy Labels On iPod Levy

Today is music day at the Bill C-32 committee as there will be two panels focused on music copyright issues. The first panel is the Balanced Copyright For Canada panel, comprised of CRIA (which backs the site as part of its strategy to “radicalize and activate” its base through social media as Graham Henderson described it earlier this month) and four of the site’s board members. The second panel includes SOCAN, ADISQ, GMMQ, and the SAC. 

The BCFC panel should raise some interesting questions about what CRIA says publicly at committee or does in the courts and what it says behind closed doors. I recently obtained a document under the Access to Information Act summarizing comments made by Henderson to Industry Canada officials in a September 2010 meeting, several months after Bill C-32 was introduced. The meeting was a Chamber of Commerce event, so CRIA did not report it in its lobbying disclosures. The summary includes two notable positions that seem to contradict public action or words and suggest a split between CRIA and other creator groups, including the Canadian Independent Music Association.

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March 1, 2011 6 comments News

Pandora: High Costs Keeping Us Out of Canada

The National Post posts a letter from Pandora’s Tim Westergren, in which he notes that: “I think it’s very important that Canadian listeners understand that Pandora is eager to launch in Canada, but the rates that have been proposed by the Canadian music rights societies are simply uneconomic.”

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March 1, 2011 3 comments News

Statscan Releases Latest Sound Recording Economic Data

Statscan has released its latest data on the state of the recording industry in Canada. The data shows a slight decline in revenues in 2009, but that expenses dropped further, resulting in an increase in operating profit margin to 16.3 percent.  Music publishers experienced increases across the board – more […]

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March 1, 2011 2 comments News