Music Industry

RIAA Responds To Protests

Well, a RIAA spokesperson had responded to the SOPA and PIPA protests in the NY Times. And of course, it’s the same old rhetoric.

Apparently he thinks everyone that opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act were either severely misinformed or want everything for free.

Of course RIAA are doing their best to “inform” people of their spin, that the industry is suffering. And by “inform” I mean suing Americans and foreigners willy nilly. But it is obvious that the public is not buying their claims.

For two decades every expert in the industry has stated the music industry would shift from physical formats to digital. But they resisted, to their detriment, and wish to continue resisting even when international music sales are growing substantially.

It’s obvious that they’re crying foul on behalf of the manufacturers, who will be unable to capitalize on format shifts in the past.

These manufacturers, many of which are owned by the labels, profited from format shifting, when people upgraded from vinyl to 8-track, from 8-track to cassette and from cassette to CD. And if they had their way they’d get a royalty whenever someone copies a recording to a device.

This is an industry that thinks that because you aren’t paying to copy your legally purchased mp3s to your mp3 player that you are a “thief”. That you are just like those pirates that mass produce CDs and DVDs and sell them in pawn shops, farmer’s markets and online.

No ? Then why are these people lobbying the current government in Canada to disallow private copying of copy protected works with Bill C-11 ? Why are attempting to push a levy mp3 players in Canada ?

We’ve heard the excuse that some people use the internet to download mp3 files illegally. But have they ever produced a study proving the majority of these illegally downloaded recordings end up on mp3 players ?

Of course not.

They don’t want to distinguish previewing and private copying from illegal downloads. They’d rather just use one word, “infringement“, to gloss over the issues and call pretty much everything piracy to get their way with the technologically inept politicians.

Some members of the industry are also currently attempting to obtain royalties for the 30 second previews retailers posts online in Canada, in order to disqualify music downloads as “fair dealing” research for Canadians.

The Stop Online Piracy Act, Protect IP Act and Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement impose RIAA‘s views in regards to fair dealing and private copying on foreign nations.

They circumvent the democratic processes of nations who have established their own legislation on these subjects and an undue influence in regards to policy is imposed on nations that are undergoing copyright reforms.

It is obvious that the inflexibility of ATCA in regards to fair dealing and copy protection is causing the current government in Canada to refuse to alter Bill C-11 in accordance to the public’s wishes.

This proves that our political process has been polluted by foreign interests and SOPA/Protect IP like legislation in the United States could further undermine Canada’s democracy and sovereignty.

When Bill C-11 was introduced as Bill C-32, the Canadian Bar Association openly questioned the workability and purpose of some of the provisions, including the fair dealing and technological protection measure provisions.

They also questioned the need for additional legislation to address unauthorized distribution on the internet, so there is clearly a disconnect in-between the people of Canada and the legislation’s proponents.

This is clearly the case in the United States as well.

February 9th, 2012 Comments Off on RIAA Responds To Protests Canadian Law, Consumer Information, Music Industry, Music Technology Rob McIntyre

Second Thoughts On ACTA In Europe

Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have had second thoughts on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and have suspended their ratification in response to the demands for public consultation on this international trade agreement.

Though Canada has ratified the ACTA on October 1st, 2011, public consultations are still listed as ongoing according to the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada web site. And several older submissions are accessible by clicking here.

Several key portions of ACTA were also addressed by the 2009 copyright consultation submissions.

February 8th, 2012 Comments Off on Second Thoughts On ACTA In Europe Canadian Law, Consumer Information, Music Industry, Music Technology Rob McIntyre

ACTA Clarified

I’ve run into this interesting article explaining ATCA by ARS Technica that I think everyone should read.

Several misconceptions in regards to this international trade agreement are apparently being propagated on the internet, most of which may result in a lack of emphasis on several key issues. And the aforementioned article helps dispel some of these misconceptions.

January 31st, 2012 Comments Off on ACTA Clarified Canadian Law, Consumer Information, Music Industry, Music Technology Rob McIntyre

SOPA Lives With Bill C-11 And ACTA

Protests against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement are under way in Europe.

Like the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act legislation in the United States, this international trade agreement contains many questionable regulations in regards to the enforcement of intellectual property laws on the internet.

Furthermore, Section 5 (Paragraph 6) of this agreement explicitly forbids the circumvention of copy protection regardless of the private copying exemptions that our government may enable in the future :

6. In order to provide the adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies referred to in paragraph 5, each Party shall provide protection at least against:

(a) to the extent provided by its law:

(i) the unauthorized circumvention of an effective technological measure carried out knowingly or with reasonable grounds to know; and

(ii) the offering to the public by marketing of a device or product, including computer programs, or a service, as a means of circumventing an effective technological measure; and

(b) the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a device or product, including computer programs, or provision of a service that:

(i) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing an effective technological measure; or

(ii) has only a limited commercially significant purpose other than circumventing an effective technological measure.

Region coded DVDs and Blu-Rays are copy protected so this clause criminalizes the copying of these DVDs and Blu-Rays to other devices.

It also criminalizes the distribution of devices that have been altered to play material from outside of a person’s region and software that can be used to bypass copy protection on music and film.

Unfortunately, Bill C-11‘s technological protection measures provisions were written to be compatible with this agreement, prior to any consultation with the public. And the current government in Canada insists on keeping this provision in when public consultations for Bill C-32 have resulted in overwhelming opposition and concern to this provision and others.

Private copying has been part of our Copyright Act since 1997. We have been able to copy music for private use, as defined by Section 80 of our copyright act since then. But apparently the current government believes it is impossible to grant an ability to copy material that is copy protected for private use, even when the current limitations stipulated in our copyright act could suffice.

According to these limitations material that is copied for private use cannot be sold or rented out, “or by way of trade exposing or offering for sale or rental”. It cannot be distributed, “whether or not for the purpose of trade”, nor communicated “to the public by telecommunication”, nor performed or “caused to be performed in public”.

Private copying clearly does NOT enable internet piracy or the illicit trade of counterfeit DVDs and Blu-Rays, so I see no reason as to why the current government insists on adding a specific provision to our Copyright Act to disallow the circumvention of technological protection measures for the reproduction of material for private purposes.

To listen to or view copy protected material a consumer must use software that decrypts and copies the resulting copy to memory or a hard drive for playback. And though temporary the resulting file is a copy from which copy protection was circumvented by a software program or device.

If an exemption for private copying were allowed, the recipient would be the same and the circumvention would be the same. The resulting copy would again be copied to a device or memory for playback, with very strict limitations in regards to distribution.

ACTA and Bill C-11 proposes the criminalization of software and devices using this premise that these can be used for illegal purposes when in reality any software or device used to decrypt copy protected CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs can be used for illegal purposes.

In the case of telecommunications, anyone can stream music and film from legally purchased devices to the net. They can also play music or films in public without paying the necessary license fees using any DVD or Blu-Ray player.

In essence it pushes both presumptions of guilt in regards to the Canadian consumer and prejudice in regards to the manufacturers of DVD and Blu-Ray decrypting software. And regardless of the idiotic rhetoric, many individuals and associations are concerned about the precedents these set.

It is important as a Canadian consumer that you voice your concerns in regards to ACTA and Bill C-11 to your local Member of Parliament as soon as possible. The public need to make it clear that they will not stand for unbalanced copyright reform in Canada.

January 30th, 2012 Comments Off on SOPA Lives With Bill C-11 And ACTA Canadian Law, Consumer Information, Music Industry, Music Technology Rob McIntyre

RIAA Issues Statement About Megaupload

The Recording Industry Association of America issued a statement about Megaupload yesterday on their blog.

According to this statement, they believe that this raid will result in more traffic towards the legal services :

“According to the NPD Group, Limewire users left by the millions in the months after the shutdown… Digital music sales that had been flagging jumped in the month immediately after the Limewire shutdown, and have remained stronger ever since… When Billboard looked at the data after the Limewire shutdown it said “The spike in sales was immediate, noticeable and lasting.”

Unfortunately this raid has resulted in concerns about legitimate services being removed from the net because of the actions of the service’s users according to Threatpost.com security blogger Dennis Fisher.

January 25th, 2012 Comments Off on RIAA Issues Statement About Megaupload Music Industry, Music Technology Rob McIntyre

Megaupload Gone

Megaupload, the Hong Kong based file sharing service, has had their Ashburn, Virginia servers shut down by Federal authorities in the United States. And four employees of this company have been arrested in New Zealand.

An indictment filed Thursday accuses the company of having cost copyright holders $500 Million in lost revenue for having facilitated the illegal distribution of music, film and other copyrighted content. But the company claimed these allegations were “grotesquely overblown” prior to the shut down, according to USA Today.

Unfortunately Megaupload also had legitimate users, whose files are inaccessible now. The site had 150 million registered users and had 50 million hits per day.

I had used the service years back to send my own videos to fellow Youtubers, which was more convenient than sending it by email. I have since found other services but it’s still a shame to loose such a resource.

January 20th, 2012 1 Comment Consumer Information, Music Industry, Music Technology Rob McIntyre