Michael Geist

The week in the life of the Canadian DMCA concludes (day one, day two, day three, day four) with Stephen.

Stephen is a big music fan.  Tonight, he is going with his girlfriend to see his favourite band in concert.  He has purchased every CD issued by the band. To get ready for concert, he downloads a live version of one of his favourite songs that was released commercially in Europe (it is not available in Canada) that he finds on a file-sharing network.  The song is downloaded to an external hard drive that he uses to store his music.  While on the network, one hundred songs on the hard drive were available in his shared folder for others to download, though none were.  At his girlfriend’s request, he also copies three of the band's best songs onto a CD to play during the drive to the concert.  He gives the CD to his girlfriend as a gift.

If Industry Minister Jim Prentice’s Bill C-61 becomes law, all of these copying activity – with one exception – would arguably violate the law.

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