Opposition to Copyright Law

[Bryan]

Four people can travel comfortably in a car, is that what you mean?

No, I mean file sharing is not comparable to property theft. If someone steals my car, it's gone. If someone downloads a copy of a CD, the physical CD is still there in the store for someone else to buy. Nothing has been stolen, there is no loss.

[Fortunata]

Apparently Prentice is going to bring this bill before Parliament this week before summer hiatus.

[jdobbin]

Apparently Prentice is going to bring this bill before Parliament this week before summer hiatus.

You are correct.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...?hub=TopStories

As a result, Prentice may seek to impose a $500 fine on individuals caught downloading copyrighted files, CP reports.

You can be sure that Canadians, many of those who vote Conservative, will be upset.

Drive around any rural area and look at the pirate satellites. This was another area that was likely to be covered under the copyright law.

[TOhasCLASS]

I the day this law is enacted we should raid every Canadians household and charge them ... that includes Prentice. I bet 95% of the Canadian population has something in their possession that would break this law. Little 2 year old billy's grade 1 crayon picture of his birthday party at McDonalds broke the law when he recreated the logo for McDonalds in it.

How much do you want to bet this ill concieved, hasty written piece of legislation garbage costs the Canadian tax payer millions in tax dollars in court cases while the corporate conglom's laugh with glee as they sell a poor 14 year kid who makes $6.80hr at Burger King the Justin Timberlake album 6 times ( 1 for his CD player, 1 for his Ipod, 1 for his phone, 1 for his computer etc.)

Better get the goon squad out to nail that kid singing the theme song for Titanic at his school talent contest with getting copyright privileges.

A complete joke ... as it is currently written.

[Fortunata]

It's just another move of this government (i.e Harper) to "follow" the big players hoping that he will get recognition and cudo's. Our Steve has an inferiority complex - he needs international affirmation he really is "important".

[TOhasCLASS]

It's just another move of this government (i.e Harper) to "follow" the big players hoping that he will get recognition and cudo's. Our Steve has an inferiority complex - he needs international affirmation he really is "important".

Ya I agree he probably was picked last in schoolyard sports and kids made fun of his awkward social skills, ill fitting cords / velour tops and beady little eyes

[stignasty]

I think the thing that bothers me about this proposed legislation is that it was conceived though consultation with everyone except the Canadian public. They seem to have made some changes such as allowing us to copy a cd to an ipod. However, even that goes against the provisions of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement at the G-8 that this government is likely to sign on to.

This should be opposed by all Canadians on the basis of the erosion of our sovereignty. We should stand up to any foreign lobbied bill that was forged without consideration for the people who will be affected by it.

[Fortunata]

They seem to have made some changes such as allowing us to copy a cd to an ipod.

According to what I just saw on tv, they say this will allow for actions such as those but the legislation still reads as it will be illegal. I want in writing exactly what is and what isn't. I don't trust this government's word when it is different than what is written.

[stignasty]

According to what I just saw on tv, they say this will allow for actions such as those but the legislation still reads as it will be illegal. I want in writing exactly what is and what isn't. I don't trust this government's word when it is different than what is written.

Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry for not taking an extra couple of minutes and being a bit clearer.

That's what I meant when I mentioned ACTA. They're saying this now to try to contain the uproar over this bill. However, the fact that they're on board with ACTA at the G8 shows their real intentions.

[stignasty]

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/06...-copyright.html

[Fortunata]

The Cons make the argument that the gun law/registry made criminals out of ordinary law-abiding citizens. I suggest that this proposed law makes criminals out of more people than the registry did.

[stignasty]

Michael Geist's Blog

The Canadian DMCA: Check the Fine Print

As expected, the Canadian DMCA is big, complicated, and a close model of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Industry Canada provides a large number of fact sheets here). I'll have much more to say once I've had a careful read, but these are my five key points to take away:

1. As expected, Prentice has provided a series of attention-grabbing provisions to consumers including time shifting, private copying of music (transfering a song to your iPod), and format shifting (changing format from analog to digital). These are good provisions that did not exist in the delayed December bill. However, check the fine print since the rules are subject to a host of strict limitations and, more importantly, undermined by the digital lock provisions. The effect of the digital lock provisions is to render these rights virtually meaningless in the digital environment because anything that is locked down (ie. copy-controlled CD, no-copy mandate on a digital television broadcast) cannot be copied. Indeed, the law makes it an infringement to circumvent the locks for these purposes.

2. The digital lock provisions are worse than the DMCA. Yes - worse. The law creates a blanket prohibition on circumvention with very limited exceptions and creates a ban against distributing the tools that can be used to circumvent. While Prentice could have adopted a more balanced approach (as New Zealand and Canada's Bill C-60 did), the effect of these provisions will be to make Canadians infringers for a host of activities that are common today including watching out-of-region-coded DVDs, copying and pasting materials from a DRM'd book, or even unlocking a cellphone. The liability for picking the digital lock is up to $20,000 per infringement.

While that is the similar to the U.S. law, the exceptions are worse. The Canadian law includes a few limited exceptions for privacy and security, yet Canadians can't actually use these exceptions since the tools needed to pick the digital lock in order to protect their privacy are banned. In other words, check the fine print again - you can protect your privacy but the tools to do so are now illegal. Dig deeper and it gets worse. Under the U.S. law, there is mandatory review process every three years to identify new exceptions. Under the Canadian law, its up to the government to introduce new exceptions if it thinks it is needed. Overall, these anti-circumvention provisions go far beyond what is needed to comply with the WIPO Internet treaties and represents an astonishing abdication of the principles of copyright balance that have guided Canadian policy for many years.

3. The other headline grabber is the $500 fine for private use infringement. This will be heralded as a reasonable compromise, but check the fine print. Canadian law already allows a court to order damages below $500 per infringement, so the change may not be as dramatic as expected. Moreover, the $500 fine may well be offset by the new sources of much larger liability as Canadians face $20,000 per infringement for transferring music from a copy-protected CD to their iPod. Finally, it is already arguably legal to download sound recordings in Canada. Under the proposal, there are exceptions for uploading or posting music online (ie. making available) and even the suggestion that posting a copyright-protected work to YouTube could result in the larger $20,000 per infringement damage award.

4. The ISP provisions are precisely as expected with a statutory notice-and-notice system. However, check the fine print. The role of the ISP may be undermined by the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which the government trumpets in its press release.

5. The education community received several provisions that are largely gutted by the fine print. For example, library materials can be distributed in electronic form, but must not extend beyond five days. In other words, it turns librarians into locksmiths. Moreover, there is an Internet exception that educators wanted but it does not apply for any works that are either password protected or include a notification that they cannot be used. In other words, online materials that are available under a Creative Commons license are fair game (as they are already), but most everything else is still potentially subject to a restriction. This was precisely what many feared - rather than pursuing the far superior expansion of fair dealing, the education community got a provision that does little to enhance classroom learning.

Thursday June 12, 2008

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/

[August1991]

No, I mean file sharing is not comparable to property theft. If someone steals my car, it's gone. If someone downloads a copy of a CD, the physical CD is still there in the store for someone else to buy. Nothing has been stolen, there is no loss.

That's ridiculously naive.

If everyone could easily download a file from the Internet, why would there even be a CD in a shop? Indeed, why would anyone create a file and post it on the Internet except as a vanity exercise?

Bryan, you are using an exceptionally narrow (and I suspect, self-serving) definition of property rights. By your logic, anyone should be able to walk across your lawn or park their car in your garage (when you're not home) because it apparently doesn't hurt you.

Your logic is akin to arguing that it's "free" to drive on roads without noticing that we all pay taxes to build and maintain the roads or more relevantly, observing that when many people drive on the same road at the same time, we impose congestion on one another.

----

I haven't looked at Prentice's legislation but I think protecting intellectual property rights is critical to a successful, developed society and I have a high respect for Prentice's abilities. Where property rights are concerned, pragmatism is the way to go. Property rights should be easy to define and relatively easy to enforce. Technology changes the answers to these questions.

Edited June 15, 2008 by August1991

[Renegade]

If everyone could easily download a file from the Internet, why would there even be a CD in a shop? Indeed, why would anyone create a file and post it on the Internet except as a vanity exercise?

Did they not create songs and movies before there was an Internet or a way to mass duplicate and distribute songs and movies?

[Wild Bill]

That's ridiculously naive.

If everyone could easily download a file from the Internet, why would there even be a CD in a shop? Indeed, why would anyone create a file and post it on the Internet except as a vanity exercise?

Well, as far as music CDs go, naive indeed! Hasn't anyone heard? CD shops have been closing in droves! Look what just happened to Tower Records in the USA.

This legislation reminds me of how the French relied on their Maginot Line to protect them from any German invasion after WWI. It was a perfect defense for the previous war.

CDs are dead! Big chains of music stores are closing! NOBODY CARES!

This legislation has been obselete for some years now. There is an entire generation that has never TOUCHED a CD, let alone bought one! Media is dead, and the business model of the record labels has been entirely based on selling media. Vinyl, CDs, DVDs...all physical media that has been replaced by digital files piped directly into personal computers and players.

Music artists have been abandoning the old business model of a recording contract in droves. Virtually none of them under 30 care anymore. The reason is quite simple and the record labels did it to themselves. In the "old" days a record label had a big budget to discover and promote new talent. Fat guys would smoke cigars in bars watching new acts, signing up those that showed potential. In Buddy Holly's day a company would often set up concert tours with busloads of their artists, going from town to town across the continent to promote their talent and boost their record sales.

As the 60's moved in and we entered the age of the supergroups an artist hoped for the standard 3 album initial contract. It was always heavily weighted in the record company's favour. They made most of the money. However, they also were fronting all the intial production expenses of producing and making records and large sums for promotion. If the artist(s) became popular enough to sell those first 3 albums they would be well-enough established to have some clout at the bargaining table for the NEXT albums! THAT'S when they began to make their money!

Sometime in the 80's with the development of the CD all that began to change. Record companies realized that CDs had destroyed the very idea of a hit single! There was no CD equivalent of the old vinyl 45. You had to buy the entire album or nothing. The price was high as well. I can well remember when a CD on sale for $20 was a bargain!

This meant that often you were lucky to get one or two good songs, with the rest just "filler".

Budgets for new artist development and discovery got drastically pruned and focused. Everything centred on "pop" music, where they targeted the very young . Young peoples' tastes tend to change rapidly. The life cycle of a pop song might be less than a year. This was perfect for the record labels as it meant that they would be constantly turning over not just products but artists. It became the age of the "one-hit wonder" where few artists ever made it past that 3 album contract to start making any real money. Almost all of the cake was being eaten by the record companies, who with the rise of the "vertical integration" business model now owned the large CD store chains themselves, effectively giving them control from the microphone to the cash register.

They chose to put most of their budgets into artists like Madonna and Alanis Morrisette. They also owned the videos, which could promote the fashions sold by clothing stores also owned by the record labels. Fashion also is a quick turnover market, meaning more profits.

By the late 80's and early 90's the record labels had achieved the ultimate in business monopolies and conglomerates. They owned and controlled the whole enchilada!

Then the Internet became a big factor. The labels were so introverted they ignored it until they were so badly beaten up they couldn't recover. Nobody needed to buy their media. What's more, it wasn't the record companies who developed a way of offering songs from download sites, giving the convenience of getting music while sitting in front of your computer at midnight in your jammies. If they had the market might have been trained early into buying music in a digital fashion.

No, the "suits" rarely understood the new digital world. They usually had secretaries to open their email for them! They spent all their time and attention on legal means of trying to stop the tide, trying to sue 12 year old school kids hard enough to scare the millions of others.

Meanwhile, artists had begun to question why they were knocking themselves out jumping through all the hoops to get a record company contract! The odds were very slim and even if you won what would the company do for you? Unless you were a 15 year old pole dancer in suggestive clothing they would spend little or no money promoting your career. Nor would they knock themselves out setting up public appearances and concerts for you. Just what would THEY get out of the deal?

Live music started to come back with the younger set. Not the teenyboppers but the 18-24 year olds, those old enough to get into bars. Bands made their money selling their teeshirts and self-produced CDs. Anybody with a laptop, $1000 of rack-mount MIDI equipment and a pirated copy of "Pro Tools" studio software could produce a professionally sounding CD. They could produce it for less than $1 and sell it for $10 when they played at a bar or club. When the record label sold a CD for $20 in a store the artist was lucky to make $0.50! The difference in profit is obvious. Bands began to make a living promoting themselves.

Some of you may have watched the tv documentary about Eminem, the rap artist. He knocked himself out for years trying to get a record label's attention. Nobody was interested. Labels only wanted to invest in what they considered a "sure thing". He finally had to produce and sell over 60,000 copies of his first album HIMSELF before some suit thought he might be an easy sell for them!

Perhaps the turning point was around 2003, when the BareNakedLadies chose not to renew their label contract and went solo. A new business model was struck, one that did NOT include the old record label companies!

Today, world famous artists are offering their own music on their websites. One offered his latest album for whatever price the customer was willing to pay! Many chose to take it for free but amazingly, he still made several million dollars! All without a record label contract.

One of my customers is an artist called Fred Eaglesmith. Fred is a very talented country/folk artist who literally carved out his own concert route! He would strike deals with venues in large and small towns across the USA and Canada where he would perform at annual events for a modest appearance fee, making his gravy from a gazebo selling all his "promo" material of CDs, tshirts, buttons, fridge magnets or whatever. The idea was to set up as many repeated annual gigs as possible. After a few years he build his circuit and all he had to do was "housekeep" it, looking after new additions and the odd cancellation. It was a lot of initial work but now he deserves our admiration. All without the help of any record company.

So now record companies think that their ticket to survival is to recover lost revenues from pirated songs. Those songs are old! Already fewer and fewer people BOTHER to pirate them as younger audiences come on board! New artists are developing new revenue streams to make a living with new channels to deliver their product. The record companies are being shut out for no longer bringing anything to the party.

If I ran a record company I would be frantically trying to re-invent myself while I was still rich enough to be able. Companies should be going back to being big promoters, making money from concerts and tours, with new discoveries. As long as they're rich they can offer to do a better job in those areas for an artist than he's likely to have the resources to do for himself.

So Harper can enact all such Bills as this as he wants. And many of us can debate it to death.

Meanwhile, the music world has already moved on.

So who cares?

[jdobbin]

Well, as far as music CDs go, naive indeed! Hasn't anyone heard? CD shops have been closing in droves! Look what just happened to Tower Records in the USA.

Music is the one industry that many of the rest in the entertainment business don't necessarily want to follow.

If you have a too loose definition of copyright, you risk people stealing your identity and marketing stuff you made. Ask artist Fred Eaglesmith how he might feel if someone set up a website using their own name and sold copied CDs below his asking price and pretending that they wrote and performed the piece?

At the same time if the legislation is too strong, the consumer gets charged for every platform they use to listen, read or watch material that they bought. For example, making it illegal to tape a TV show to watch later or transfering a song to a tape to listen on another device.

It is tricky legislation.

One thing that is certainly happening is that Canadians have been freely accessing satellite signals, music, movies and the like and not paying anyone. That is a business model that could eventually harm those that create this type of material.

[Wild Bill]

Music is the one industry that many of the rest in the entertainment business don't necessarily want to follow.

If you have a too loose definition of copyright, you risk people stealing your identity and marketing stuff you made. Ask artist Fred Eaglesmith how he might feel if someone set up a website using their own name and sold copied CDs below his asking price and pretending that they wrote and performed the piece?

At the same time if the legislation is too strong, the consumer gets charged for every platform they use to listen, read or watch material that they bought. For example, making it illegal to tape a TV show to watch later or transfering a song to a tape to listen on another device.

It is tricky legislation.

One thing that is certainly happening is that Canadians have been freely accessing satellite signals, music, movies and the like and not paying anyone. That is a business model that could eventually harm those that create this type of material.

Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Fred doesn't care if you copy his CDs! He will always make money selling at his concerts, often personally signing his CDs. And his Tshirts and buttons. As for "identity theft", I guess you are not familiar with the music world. It would be impossible for someone to steal one of Fred's songs! He is an established artist with a history of performing his material. Not only would it be an easy legal situation but the fan base would despise someone who ripped off their material. Perhaps you remember what happened to Milli Vanilli?

I agree that if someone was copying and selling in bulk he would take offense but we already have legislation to handle such eventualities. I thought the criticism of the Harper Bill was about busting 12 year olds for making a downloaded personal copy.

As for people buying music and then transferring it to multiple media, they will anyways! How on earth could the government police this? What crown attorney would ever waste the court's time on charging a kid with no money to pay any fine anyway?

Can you cite a single instance of someone in Canada being charged for buying an LP and dubbing it onto a cassette tape for his car or Walkman? Or an extra CD for the car? It never happened 'cuz it would have been a waste of time.

Anyhow, as I had said but perhaps did not emphasize enough, artists sell self-produced CDs that they don't care if they're copied. They have enough true fans that buy enough. They make much more money selling digital files from their websites, which again they don't care about copying! They make their living from concerts and tours.

The people who really lose are the record companies and they are the ones driving this Bill, not artists. All the talk about protecting artists from ripoffs is as much crap as Sheila Copp's extra .25 tax on cassettes. This was supposedly to establish a fund to repay artists from piracy. I have yet to meet an artist after all these years who ever got a dime from such a fund.

The point of my long post is that the record companies are the ones driving a Bill to fight "the last war". The world is changing and their fight is misguided and futile. I remember working with an old guy who had worked for the Canadian Westinghouse vacuum tube factory in Hamilton, ON. He told me of how the union and the company, in a rare spirit of co-operation had together petitioned the feds to pass more duties and tariffs on Japanese vacuum tubes that were being sold cheaper than Westinghouse product.

I asked him when this occurred and he told me it was the late 70's. This was over 15 years past the time when transistors had been introduced and put the vacuum tube industry into its death throes. The world had long passed them by, rendering their petition moot. In effect, they were waging political wars on the Titanic after it had already hit the iceberg.

The record companies are in exactly the same situation. This Bill addresses a problem that is vanishing anyway, at least as far as music artists. Those that don't understand this are just dating themselves.

Edited June 15, 2008 by Wild Bill

[August1991]

Did they not create songs and movies before there was an Internet or a way to mass duplicate and distribute songs and movies?

Uh renegade, I think you're entirely missing the point here. Mozart, for example, wrote beautiful music even before 8-track tapes...

At issue is whether a creator can benefit in some way from her/his creation (other than the vanity of knowing people enjoy it). Even Mozart had to feed a family.

My argument is that, all things considered, we under-produce new ideas and music and movies because the creators too often don't benefit from their creation. Societies such as America where they attempt to reward idea creators are more successful societies.

If anyone could steal a car, no one would buy one and hence no one would produce one. The same concept applies to ideas or music.

If I ran a record company I would be frantically trying to re-invent myself while I was still rich enough to be able. Companies should be going back to being big promoters, making money from concerts and tours, with new discoveries. As long as they're rich they can offer to do a better job in those areas for an artist than he's likely to have the resources to do for himself.

So Harper can enact all such Bills as this as he wants. And many of us can debate it to death.

Meanwhile, the music world has already moved on.

So who cares?

Who cares? I do!

All you are saying here, Wild Bill, is that technology often redefines how we define "property". The new technology of domesticated dogs redefined property because it meant a land-owner could sleep at night knowing that a dog would announce a trespasser. The invention of barbed wire (late 1800s) achieved the sdame goal. Branding of animals (another technology) is another way to enforce property rights.

There's technology, and legal codes. In sophisticated, rich, civilized societies, we can sometimes use the law to enforce property rights. Perhaps Prentice's bill will work given the recent changes in technology (ie. the Internet).

[Topaz]

Prentice said the reason for doing this was to get Canada with the international community or is it Canada's law of copyright being the same as the US so down the road Canada laws are the same as the US and easier to bring in the NAU. Just watch how the seating government is doing away with the present way of " Canadian ways" and changing them to the US by using the "international". BTW, the cons talk about the Libs carbon tax, I don't think many young people will vote for the Cons either after this bill is passed.

[jdobbin]

Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Fred doesn't care if you copy his CDs! He will always make money selling at his concerts, often personally signing his CDs. And his Tshirts and buttons. As for "identity theft", I guess you are not familiar with the music world. It would be impossible for someone to steal one of Fred's songs! He is an established artist with a history of performing his material. Not only would it be an easy legal situation but the fan base would despise someone who ripped off their material. Perhaps you remember what happened to Milli Vanilli?

I suppose as an established artist, he does have that advantage. It isn't one that newer artists have.

If an artist is only concerned with concert money and selling their wares at such places, I guess copyright doesn't matter. It does matter to artists who don't have live performances to help finance their craft. Writers generally rely on copyright to finance their careers.

I agree that if someone was copying and selling in bulk he would take offense but we already have legislation to handle such eventualities. I thought the criticism of the Harper Bill was about busting 12 year olds for making a downloaded personal copy.

Then that separates you from some of the critics of copyright in this forum. Some believe that if someone else creates it, they can sell it or otherwise use it for whatever endeavour they want. I think even the artist you mention might be a bit miffed if his song was used to sell a product in a commercial that he in no way endorsed.

Copyright means you have some control over that product for a set time and can sell rights to it to whom you choose. Some people don't believe in that.

I have no problems with someone copying something they have bought for personal use. I do think that downloads of TV and movies on widespread scale breaks that business model. Quite honestly, I don't know how you fund a movie if no one pays for it.

As for people buying music and then transferring it to multiple media, they will anyways! How on earth could the government police this? What crown attorney would ever waste the court's time on charging a kid with no money to pay any fine anyway?

I have no problems with that. The biggest advocates of copyright try to push for payment on each platform a product is sold on though.

Can you cite a single instance of someone in Canada being charged for buying an LP and dubbing it onto a cassette tape for his car or Walkman? Or an extra CD for the car? It never happened 'cuz it would have been a waste of time.

That is because it is allowed under the present law. You now pay money for blanks to satisfy this aspect of copyright.

Anyhow, as I had said but perhaps did not emphasize enough, artists sell self-produced CDs that they don't care if they're copied. They have enough true fans that buy enough. They make much more money selling digital files from their websites, which again they don't care about copying! They make their living from concerts and tours.

Great for those artists. However, copyright covers a whole lot more than songwriters. It covers writers, software developers, artists, actors, etc.

The people who really lose are the record companies and they are the ones driving this Bill, not artists. All the talk about protecting artists from ripoffs is as much crap as Sheila Copp's extra .25 tax on cassettes. This was supposedly to establish a fund to repay artists from piracy. I have yet to meet an artist after all these years who ever got a dime from such a fund.

Funds are paid out to artists. They don't go to government coffers.

The point of my long post is that the record companies are the ones driving a Bill to fight "the last war". The world is changing and their fight is misguided and futile. I remember working with an old guy who had worked for the Canadian Westinghouse vacuum tube factory in Hamilton, ON. He told me of how the union and the company, in a rare spirit of co-operation had together petitioned the feds to pass more duties and tariffs on Japanese vacuum tubes that were being sold cheaper than Westinghouse product.

I asked him when this occurred and he told me it was the late 70's. This was over 15 years past the time when transistors had been introduced and put the vacuum tube industry into its death throes. The world had long passed them by, rendering their petition moot. In effect, they were waging political wars on the Titanic after it had already hit the iceberg.

The record companies are in exactly the same situation. This Bill addresses a problem that is vanishing anyway, at least as far as music artists. Those that don't understand this are just dating themselves.

This isn't simply about record companies bit on all aspects of creativity that are being downloaded freely.

[Wild Bill]

Funds are paid out to artists. They don't go to government coffers.

Can you name an artist who received a payment from Sheila's fund? In all these years I've never met or heard of a single one! No artist/customer of mine has been able to tell me of an instance anywhere either.

Perhaps you can give me an example. You may get out more than I do...

[jdobbin]

Can you name an artist who received a payment from Sheila's fund? In all these years I've never met or heard of a single one! No artist/customer of mine has been able to tell me of an instance anywhere either.

Perhaps you can give me an example. You may get out more than I do...

Fred Eaglesmith for one.

He collects royalties from a variety of sources.

http://www.nucountry.com.au/articles/diary...eagelesmith.htm

Eaglesmith songs have also embroidered other lucrative movie ventures by director Martin Scorsese; James Caan film Viva Los Nowhere also featured two of his songs.

And Eaglesmith's music was also used in short film 50 Odd Dollars.

But Oklahoma-born Keith, 45, whose other indie record label Big Machine features Texans Jack Ingram and Sunny Sweeney, is the leader of the posse to cut Fred's songs.

Others include Cowboy Junkies, Todd Snider, Chris Knight, Dar Williams, Wendy Newcomer, Mary Gauthier and a brace of bluegrass artists.

Homegrown artists earning royalties for Fred include Kasey and Bill Chambers, Catherine Britt, Audrey Auld Mezera and Greencards.

Eaglesmith is a member of Socan which gets money from the fund.

http://www.socan.ca/pdf/en/2006FinancialReport.pdf

http://www.socan.ca/jsp/en/news_events/new...shvilleHits.jsp

You'll see him listed in the link above. Socan collects money from blank tapes as you can see from their report. Eaglesmith would earn quite a few royalties from SOCAN including on blank tapes.

Around $100 million has been distributed through the levy to artists, writers performers and record companies. It doesn't go into government coffers.

Edited June 15, 2008 by jdobbin

[Renegade]

Uh renegade, I think you're entirely missing the point here. Mozart, for example, wrote beautiful music even before 8-track tapes...

At issue is whether a creator can benefit in some way from her/his creation (other than the vanity of knowing people enjoy it). Even Mozart had to feed a family.

My argument is that, all things considered, we under-produce new ideas and music and movies because the creators too often don't benefit from their creation. Societies such as America where they attempt to reward idea creators are more successful societies.

If anyone could steal a car, no one would buy one and hence no one would produce one. The same concept applies to ideas or music.

No, I don't think I am. I certainly agree with you that creator of content need incentive to produce content. My point is that there is more than one model to incent creators of content. It doesn't necessarily depend upon preventing consumers of content from duplicating content. What if for example, Justin Timberlake let all his songs be downloaded and distributed for free, and it drove up exposure, awareness and popularity of JT? He potentially could be renumerated from revenues through brand endorsements, live concerts, and merchandise.

The only question is what is appropriate mechanism to incent creators of content. You should not limit yourself to business models which restrict the duplication of content for that incentive.

[Wild Bill]

Fred Eaglesmith for one.

You'll see him listed in the link above. Socan collects money from blank tapes as you can see from their report. Eaglesmith would earn quite a few royalties from SOCAN including on blank tapes.

Around $100 million has been distributed through the levy to artists, writers performers and record companies. It doesn't go into government coffers.

Ah, so that's how they do it! 'Course, you have to be a member of SOCAN but that's a good idea for any Canadian artist anyway.

Thank you!

[Fortunata]

Here is what the Canadian Music Creator's Coalition has to say (from an email from CMCC):

The Canadian Music Creators Coalition is not impressed with the copyright reform bill announced this morning. "As we feared, this bill represents an American-style approach to copyright. It's all locks and lawsuits," said Safwan Javed, CMCC member and drummer for Wide Mouth Mason.

"Rather than building a made-in-Canada proposal to help musicians get paid, the government has chosen to import American-style legislation that says the solution to the music industry's problems is suing our fans," continued Javed. "Suing fans won't make it 1992 again. It's a new world for the music business and this is an old approach."

The CMCC is unimpressed by government claims that this bill strikes the right balance between all the stakeholders. It notes that business groups, creators groups and consumer groups have all expressed their dissatisfaction with the government's continued attempts to pass a copyright bill that does not consider Canadian's interests.

"The question is, who gains from this bill?" explained Brendan Canning, co-founder of Broken Social Scene and a CMCC member. "It's not musicians. Musicians don't need lawsuits, we don't need DRM protection. These aren't the things that help us or our careers. What we do need is a government that is willing to sit down with all the stakeholders and craft a balanced copyright policy for Canada that will not repeat the mistakes made in the United States."

(The CMCC is a coalition of nearly 200 Canadian acts who share the common goal of having our voices heard about the laws and policies that affect our livelihoods. Our membership rolls boast dozens of household names including Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Broken Social Scene, Matthew Good, Metric, Randy Bachman, Billy Talent, Sloan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), The New Pornographers, Bill Henderson (Chilliwack), Ronnie King (The Stampeders), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Three Days Grace, Andrew Cash and Sam Roberts. We are the people who actually create Canadian music. Without us, there would be no music for copyright laws to protect. )

Until recently, a group of multinational record labels has done most of the talking about what Canadian artists need out of copyright and cultural policy. The labels' legislative proposals facilitate lawsuits against fans and increase the labels' control over the enjoyment of music. These proposals have the labels' interests at heart – not artists' interests, not fans' interests, and certainly not Canada's interests.

The CMCC grew out of our common desire to speak out in Canadian copyright and cultural policy debates. The CMCC is united under three key principles:

Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical

Artists do not want to sue music fans. The labels have been suing our fans against artists' will, and laws enabling these suits cannot be justified in artists' names.

Digital Locks are Risky and Counterproductive

Artists do not support using digital locks to increase the labels' control over the distribution, use and enjoyment of music or laws that prohibit circumvention of such technological measures. Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice.

Cultural Policy Should Support Actual Canadian Artists

The vast majority of new Canadian music is not promoted by major labels, which focus mostly on foreign artists. The government should use other policy tools to support actual Canadian artists and a thriving musical and cultural scene.

Edited June 16, 2008 by Fortunata