Post Tagged with: "copyrightCopyright Microsite – Music IndustryCopyright Microsite – Canadian Copyright"

LeBlanc on HMV and CRIA Stats

Larry LeBlanc, the longtime Canadian music reporter, recently left Billboard Magazine and has begun to publish a regular email newsletter on Canadian music developments.  LeBlanc's latest edition includes some pointed comments on the coverage of HMV's retail price reductions and CRIA's attempts to link them to P2P downloading.  LeBlanc has kindly granted me permission to repost his comments on this issue, which he titles HMV's Price Cuts and Why CRIA's Stats Don't Add Up:

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September 12, 2007 3 comments News

Survey Finds Declining P2P Usage in Canada

The Copyright Board of Canada conducted hearings today on the private copying levy.  Included as part of the evidence was a major survey (not online at the moment) on music copying conducted for the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) by Reseau Circum.  The CPCC, which counts CRIA General Counsel Richard Pfohl as one of its board members, has tracked music copying habits since 2001-02. 

The headliner in the latest survey is that file sharing activity is in steady decline in Canada.  The survey, conducted in June 2006, finds that just 14 percent of Canadians have downloaded music in the last 12 months, down from 15 percent in 2005, 19 percent in 2004, 21 percent in 2003, and 21 percent in 2002.  It goes without saying that this finding comes despite the absence of lawsuits, the absence of copyright reform, and the continual (yet questionable) claims that Canada is a world leader in file sharing.

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October 24, 2006 12 comments News

The Private Copying Survey

The Canadian Private Copying Collective is out with an Environics survey it commissioned on Canadians' attitudes toward the private copying levy.  While I give full marks to the CPCC for releasing the survey results in full (presumably it would have been made available as part of their submission to the Copyright Board anyway), it is time to declare a moratorium on the use of polls as policymaking.  As I have noted before, CRIA's regular Pollara polls are rendered useless by virtue of the omission of key questions, inconsistent results, and the lack of public awareness on the issues.

This CPCC study falls into the same category.

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August 31, 2006 5 comments News

Major Record Labels Adopt ACS

The online community is buzzing today over the announcement that Universal Music plans to "give away" music online through a new service called SpiralFrog (which is also negotiating with other major labels including EMI).  The approach is not particularly innovative – the service will be ad-supported, something people like Terry McBride from Nettwerk has been advocating for months and other sectors (television, radio, online gaming, newspapers) have been offering for some time.  Moreover, the service is likely to face some challenges – by relying on DRM that is not compatible with the iPod, it is leaving out a large part of the market. 

That said, there are at least two bigger points worth making.

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August 29, 2006 5 comments News

Setting the IFPI Record Straight

The IFPI, which represents the major music labels internationally, is out with its annual piracy report.  Canada gets a fair amount of attention as we are one of ten priority countries.  In explaining the situation in Canada, the IFPI resorts to a series of mischaracterizations and omissions that piggyback CRIA claims and therefore demand a rebuttal. 

The report begins with:

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July 27, 2006 4 comments News