The Day Music Died

[Gizzmo_jr]

As inspired from another forum I read. Complete utter bullshit about what is coming, not even FairPlay gets mentioned.
Our Canadian law's, regarding the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, hasn't changed since 1997, and today a bill was passed. This is on route to the House of Commons and the senate to become Canadian Law (final changes in the DMCA). In a nutshell, these are the main changes.
-- A $500 fine for each illegal file shared online
-- Making it illegal to unlock cellphones or copy music from protected CDs to iPods
-- Forbidding the right to copy "time shifted" shows onto personal video recorders if flagged by broadcasters.

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3025/1/
Is a link regarding the newer, finer details of what is proposed. This happened today.

Further reading
http://www.ic.gc.ca/cmb/welcomeic.nsf/0365f77a8a847e1e8525655d006e1f91/85256a5d006b9720852574650065cf5b!OpenDocument
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=580564
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/


After months of delays and speculation, the federal government is set to unveil its controversial update to the Copyright Act of Canada Thursday.

According to a press release, Industry Minister Jim Prentice and Heritage Minister Josée Verner are set to introduce the legislation during the morning Parliamentary session. Both ministers will deliver brief statements and answer media inquiries shortly after the tabling of a bill to amend the Copyright Act.

[mleblond]

doesn't the people have a word to say about this? I would not re-elect the morons who approve this. This will affecting probably every single household in Canada....really how do they expect to apply the law? Put it in the hands of internet providers?

Solution: We will need to get sharing software that send encrypted data over the network :chuckle obviously this is going in the wrong direction...

[tweak_s]

Agreed with the day music died.

Look at what Trent Reznor of Nine Inch nails did....

[whiteomega]

i disagree with this too, and i stopped pirating music a long time ago. if this goes through, that blank-media levy had better damned well go the way of the dinosaur; i'm tired of paying more for blank dvds, hard disks, blank cassettes, dvd recorders, etc. the recording industry in Canada is already getting its pound of flesh from those taxes; if sharing/copying/circumventing copy protection becomes illegal, there's no need for media taxes anymore.

all this kind of thing does is curtail the kind of innovation that has helped the internet grow the way it has in the past few years. in the old days, distributing free, open programs (like linux or Mozilla/Firefox) would have taken hours; now you can download an entire linux distribution in less than an hour, thanks to bit torrent. the cbc has even made one of their tv shows available online via bit torrent for all to legally download.

i for one am not looking forward to this bill if it passes.

[ghostdog]

aren't these laws proposed to make us to be on par with the US? aren't there still lots of sharing still done in the US?

[Noisy Crow]

Did you guys read the legislation?

Some parts are okay. Other parts... not so okay.

[mleblond]

But that's politicians listening to the BIG CHEESE music industry guys instead of the population of this country...why would I vote for this bill? Like shooting yourself in the foot. i think lots of bands would not be as big without the internet...I personally hate spending 20$ on a cd that sits on the shelf because it sucks....if i download the album and like it I will go and buy the cd to support the artist. if stores fix their return policy then im fine in borrowing the cd for a couple weeks to see if I like it...

[whiteomega]

But that's politicians listening to the BIG CHEESE music industry guys instead of the population of this country...why would I vote for this bill? Like shooting yourself in the foot. i think lots of bands would not be as big without the internet...I personally hate spending 20$ on a cd that sits on the shelf because it sucks....if i download the album and like it I will go and buy the cd to support the artist. if stores fix their return policy then im fine in borrowing the cd for a couple weeks to see if I like it...

While I agree that if you download something and like it, you should buy it, what happens in the situation where you can't find a physical copy? Do you log in to iTunes and download it? At that point, you can only listen to it on your computer, unless you burn it to a CD. Then it's right back to square one, as far as the music industry is concerned. If you can't find another copy of it at all, what then? The general population will just say "Oh well, I have a copy of it" and move on.

I'm a fan of the idea of releasing an album "mashup" consisting of a reasonably long sampling of all the tracks on the CD (say, 20 seconds for each), and posting it on the internet for all to download. That way, you get a sample of the entire album without the tedium of clicking on 15-20 links to listen to the songs. If you like them, buy it; if you don't, move on.

The industry just needs to leverage new ideas; if they did that, I don't think there would be nearly as much piracy.

Edit: Let's not forget too that piracy has been around in one form or another since long before the internet; the only difference is that the internet has made it much easier to distribute; and also increased awareness of piracy. You hear about more cases simply because word travels faster over the internet than it did in the pre-internet days.

[mleblond]

Totally agree with you Whiteomega

whats worst is that the artist themselves make next to nothing on music sales anyways...they make their big money with shows and you can't bootleg attending a show...although you could try to sneek in :chuckle

[Mafty]

how are they going to catch people downloading music........its never been "legal" so i dont see how this changes anything. there was never a point when you could legally download a song for free. plus how are they going to prove you didnt buy it off of itunes or other legal sites where you can buy music....theres way to many flaws i think.

i also think this is targeted towards people downloading movies and people getting $1000 software for free (photoshop etc).

[howitts_done]

Why don't they focus their efforts on the mass pirates and stop hurting the everyday user... this really pisses me off!

[Noisy Crow]

Why don't they focus their efforts on the mass pirates and stop hurting the everyday user... this really pisses me off!

I repeat: have you read the legislation? The bill's intent IS to nail the mass pirates. It allows people who have legit music to put a copy on every playback device they own. It puts a much lower cap on the fines for individuals "stealing" downloads for their own use. However, it also puts restrictions on what people can do with things they own outright (no unlocking phones) or have paid to use but are prevented from creating backups (no circumventing DRM schemes).

This legislation is not as bad as the DMCA, but it certainly could have been better.

[Skarbro]

how are they going to catch people downloading music........its never been "legal" so i dont see how this changes anything. there was never a point when you could legally download a song for free.
On the contrary, it's ALWAYS been legal to download in Canada (until this stupid bill). It's been illegal to UPLOAD.

[howitts_done]

I repeat: have you read the legislation? The bill's intent IS to nail the mass pirates. It allows people who have legit music to put a copy on every playback device they own. It puts a much lower cap on the fines for individuals "stealing" downloads for their own use. However, it also puts restrictions on what people can do with things they own outright (no unlocking phones) or have paid to use but are prevented from creating backups (no circumventing DRM schemes).

This legislation is not as bad as the DMCA, but it certainly could have been better.

I apologize... I did not read the legislation. I was thinking this was the other proposed bill/act/law where customs agents could look at your iPod, laptop, etc and decide if the content on the device was legal.

[whiteomega]

I repeat: have you read the legislation? The bill's intent IS to nail the mass pirates. It allows people who have legit music to put a copy on every playback device they own. It puts a much lower cap on the fines for individuals "stealing" downloads for their own use. However, it also puts restrictions on what people can do with things they own outright (no unlocking phones) or have paid to use but are prevented from creating backups (no circumventing DRM schemes).

This legislation is not as bad as the DMCA, but it certainly could have been better.

I'd say as far as the penalties go for pirating; it's about equal to the DMCA; unfortunately, the fair use restrictions are much, much stricter than what the DMCA offers.

I just think legislating this is the wrong way to go; as I mentioned, they should be leveraging technology to help them sell more; rather than using the law to keep the sales they have.

Prohibition didn't stop the liquor trade; the DMCA didn't stop pirating in the US, and so the conclusion could be that the Copyright Act of Canada won't stop pirating in Canada either. I don't mind laws protecting copyright ownership; there has to be some, or you'll never publish your ideas or creations, for fear that everyone will rip them off. What I do mind is laws that unbalance the equation; the CAoC is one of them.