Post Tagged with: "private copying"

Music Industry Needs Dose Of Innovation, Not Intervention

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, Ottawa Citizen version, The Tyee version, homepage version) focuses on the contrast between artists such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails that are adopting new distribution models, and the recording industry, which continues to lobby for anti-circumvention legislation. In the weeks leading up to today's Speech from the Throne, CRIA and others lobby groups have urged the government to prioritize intellectual property protection.

While the data suggests that peer-to-peer file sharing is at best only a minor reason for the decline (more significant is competition from DVD and video game sales and the emergence of big box retailers such as Wal-Mart who have pushed down retail prices and decimated sales of older titles), events over the past month have provided the clearest indication yet that musicians and music sellers are charting a new course that is leaving the major record labels behind.

In the mid-1990s, the industry focused on retaining its core business model by emphasizing two strategies. First, it relied on copy-control technologies, supported by additional legal measures, to curtail unauthorized copying. Second, it lobbied for the establishment of a private copying levy on blank media to compensate for the copying that technology could not control.

Ten years later, that strategy is now in tatters.

October 16, 2007 — 7 comments — Columns

Music Industry Needs A Dose of Innovation, Not Intervention

Appeared in the Toronto Star on October 15, 2007 as Music Industry Needs Innovation Not Intervention Appeared in the Tyee on October 16, 2007 as Music Biz Wants Crackdown In the weeks leading up to tomorrow's Speech from the Throne, several music industry lobby groups have urged the government to […]

October 15, 2007 — 7 comments — Columns Archive

Copyright and the Throne Speech

While Canadian Heritage Copyright Policy may be undergoing some uncertainty, that is not stopping some copyright lobby groups from pushing the government to include copyright in next month's throne speech. In one of the oddest releases in memory [can't seem to find it online yet], four industry groups – CRIA, Canadian Independent Record Production Association (CIRPA), Canadian Music Publishers Association (CMPA), and Music Managers Forum (MMF) Canada, have called on the government to feature copyright, including WIPO ratification, in the forthcoming legislative agenda.

The strangest part of the release is the vision put forward by these four groups. There are no musicians, performers, songwriters, or copyright collectives to be found (the absence of consumers is a given). Of course, the release fails to mention that Canadian musicians stand against WIPO ratification, while CRIA is in the middle of litigation in which it opposes the collectives and is trying to reduce the amount of compensation they receive. In other words, it is an industry view of a music industry without musicians.

September 25, 2007 — 2 comments — News

Fearing Legalized P2P Downloading, CRIA Declares War on Private Copying Levy

The Canadian Recording Industry Association this week quietly filed documents in the Federal Court of Appeal that will likely shock many in the industry. CRIA, which spent more than 15 years lobbying for the creation of the private copying levy, is now fighting to eliminate the application of the levy on the Apple iPod since it believes that the Copyright Board of Canada's recent decision to allow a proposed tariff on iPods to proceed "broadens the scope of the private copying exception to avoid making illegal file sharers liable for infringement."

Given that CRIA's members collect millions from the private copying levy, the decision to oppose its expansion may come as a surprise. Yet the move reflects a reality that CRIA has previously been loath to acknowledge – the Copyright Board has developed jurisprudence that provides a strong argument that downloading music on peer-to-peer networks is lawful in Canada. Indeed, CRIA President Graham Henderson provides a roadmap for the argument in his affidavit:

"First, the Board has stated, in obiter dicta, on several occasions that the Private Copying regime legalizes copying for the private use of the person making the copy, regardless of whether the source is non-infringing or not. Therefore, according to the Board, downloading an infringing track from the Internet is not infringing, as long as the downloaded copy is made onto an 'audio recording medium'…

Second, also in obiter dicta, the Board stated that the private copying exception in Section 80 is not conditioned on the existence of a tariff to collect royalties covering the medium onto which copies are made.

Third, in combination with the aforementioned obiter dicta in the Board's other decisions, the Decision [the iPod decision] could potentially be interpreted to allow the copying of music files from any source – whether legitimate or illegitimate – onto any type of device ordinarily used by individuals to copy music, such as personal computers…"

While Henderson and CRIA make it clear that they disagree with this interpretation, they are obviously sufficiently concerned that it reflects Canadian law that they have burned their remaining bridges with Canadian music in order to try to persuade the Federal Court of Appeal to allow them to intervene in iPod hearings.

September 15, 2007 — 29 comments — News

A Digital Economy Blueprint For the New Industry Minister

Jim Prentice, Canada's new Industry Minister, has been on the job for less than a week, yet his appointment has already sent a buzz through the business community. With a member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's inner circle now at the helm, promoting Canada's global economic competitiveness promises to become a core priority on the government's fall agenda. While some political commentators maintain that the issue rarely translates into voter support, my weekly Law Bytes column (Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) argues that the good news for Prentice is that reforms focusing on digital issues represent both good policy and smart politics. By prioritizing three issues – communication, copyright, and consumer confidence – he has the opportunity to establish a forward-looking framework that can serve as a model for other countries and provide a payoff at the ballot box.

On the communication front, analysts are divided on whether recent deregulation will result in reduced prices for consumers; however, there is near-universal agreement that deregulation alone is not enough.

August 21, 2007 — Comments are Disabled — Neutrality