Music industry lobby groups may frequently seek to equate the Internet with lost revenues, but an examination of financial data from one of Canada’s largest music copyright collectives demonstrates massive growth in earnings arising from Internet streaming including major services such as Youtube and Apple Music. While many collectives do not publicly disclose their revenues, SOCAN, which represents composers, songwriters, and music publishers, provides a detailed breakdown of revenues and distributions in its annual report.
Latest Posts
Closed by Default: Why is Prime Minister Trudeau Using Restrictive Terms for Flickr Image Use?
Yesterday’s post on the Canada, the TPP and intellectual property raised a concern unrelated to the content of the piece. Since updating my site several years ago, I use a Creative Commons licensed or public domain image for virtually every post, celebrating the remarkable creativity of people and organizations from around the world who make their work freely available for anyone to use. In searching for an updated image on the TPP, I encountered a problem that has arisen with increased frequency. Several governments posted relevant images from the meetings in Vietnam and the Philippines, but the Canadian images featured restrictive terms and conditions in the form of an all-rights-reserved approach.
Bursting the IP Trade Bubble: Canada’s Position on IP Rules Takes Shape With Suspended TPP Provisions
In the months following the conclusion of the Trans Pacific Partnership, critics pointed to many specific problems in the text with respect to intellectual property, culture, privacy, and dispute resolution. TPP defenders consistently dismissed those concerns, yet last week’s successful Canadian demand to suspend many of the most problematic IP provisions (along with holding out for reforms to the cultural exemption) confirms that the government has recognized the validity of the criticisms. The government may yet cave to U.S. pressure in the NAFTA renegotiation, but it has established a clear position on culture and IP that better reflects the national interest.
Canada Revenue Agency Obtains Broad Court Order for Years of PayPal Data
The Canada Revenue Agency has obtained a federal court order requiring PayPal to hand over years of transactional information from all business accounts in Canada. The scope of the order is incredibly broad, covering any business account holder who sent or received a payment over a nearly four year period from January 1, 2014 to November 10, 2017. The information to be disclosed includes:
Canada’s Billion Dollar Wireless Cash Grab: CRTC Data Shows Overage Fees Now Exceed Roaming Revenues
The CRTC’s release of the 2017 Communications Monitoring Report ushered in the usual conflicting reports on the state of communications services in Canada. I found the most compelling take to be Tefficient’s data charts that show Canadian wireless companies generating revenue per GB that is the highest in the developed economy world (literally off-the-chart) alongside mobile data usage growth rates that are among the slowest on record. The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association described the growth rate as “impressive”, but when just about everyone has faster growth rates, it is readily apparent that high wireless costs in Canada have a negative impact on usage.
Digging further into the data, the CRTC provides insight into an oft-overlooked source of revenue for the carriers: overage charges, which represent an ongoing source of frustration for many consumers. While many carriers have unlimited broadband plans, unlimited wireless plans are rare, leaving subscribers to carefully monitor their data usage. Based on the CRTC data, however, many find themselves exceeding their monthly cap fairly regularly as data overage charges constitute 6 per cent of total retail wireless revenues:
Recent Posts
Ignoring the Warning Signs: Why Did the Canadian Government Dismiss the Trade Risks of a Digital Services Tax? 
Why Bill C-2 Faces a Likely Constitutional Challenge By Placing Solicitor-Client Privilege at Risk 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 237: A Conversation with Jason Woywada of BCFIPA on Political Party Privacy and Bill C-4 
Lawful Access on Steroids: Why Bill C-2’s Big Brother Tactics Combine Expansive Warrantless Disclosure with Unprecedented Secrecy 
Government Reverses on Privacy and the Charter: Department of Justice Analysis Concludes Political Party Privacy Bill Raises No Charter of Rights Effects
