Penalty Free Copyrighted Music Downloading Off The Net In Canada Could Be Illegal By New Year
Posted November 19, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
If you’re a fan of downloading copyrighted music off the Internet without paying for it, get ready for a rude awakening. It appears the Canadian government is about to finally introduce new legislation that will make that act a crime. It may not be technically illegal in this country to capture copyrighted MP3 files to your PC or iPod, but the recording industry believes it’s immoral. And it’s been costing them a fortune.
For years, they’ve been urging the government here to follow in the footsteps of the U.S. and change Canadian copyright laws to reflect the digital age. This country signed two different World Intellectual Property Organization treaties that laid out parameters for protecting artists and music companies, but never made them law. And when the Liberals fell in 2005, their proposed legislation was the day the music died for those big record firms.
But the practice of taking what you want from file sharing sites like Lime Wire or BitTorrent without breaking the law could be about to end. The government may try to introduce new legislation that would make the practice illegal before MPs go on Christmas vacation.
How much is the industry here losing? It’s estimated that 1.3 billion tracks are downloaded without payment in Canada annually, which the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) says siphons $23.5 million out of the market. Small wonder that national digital download businesses in the Great White North accounted for just five percent of all music sales for the year.
Most homegrown artists agree something needs to be done, as they see millions of dollars in royalties going down the not-so-virtual drain. But the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, which includes members of the Barenaked Ladies, Billy Talent, Sloan, and individuals like Avril Lavigne and Sam Roberts, are adamant the record companies should not be able to sue individuals for crushing amounts of money, like they do down south.
“When the CRIA said ‘copyright reform,’ what they really mean is ‘give a free hand to sue fans who download,'” Ladies lead singer Steven Page relates in a statement on the group’s website. “We hope the government has a better solution in mind.”
The Association denies the claim, insisting most Canadians are law abiding citizens and will obey whatever the new law says.
It’s not yet clear what the penalties might be in any new legislation or how they would be enforced. But the days of the dollar-less digital downloads could be ending, and it may not be quite the Christmas present music loving computer owners were expecting.
