With the recent court case ruling that downloading music in Canada is legal, the CRIA panicked as they claim they will have a hard time selling music as well as the music artists. Under the current Canadian law, the CRIA and artists have no legal right to sue copyright infringing file swappers or downloader's. As a result, Scherrer a minister of Canadian Heritage promised to make changes to the Canadian copyright law as quickly as possible to plug this issue. Scherrer's announcement at the Juno Awards received a loud applause from the audience of Canadian music industry types.
However the Canadian pop idol winner Ryan Malcolm expressed scepticism. He is happy as long as the people listen to the music what ever way they get it and suggests that that the Canadian music business should find a way to live with file sharing networks as he thinks it is a challenge.
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"As minister of Canadian Heritage, I will, as quickly as possible, make changes to our copyright law," said Scherrer yesterday. The minister offered no details, but she was responding to the challenge posed by a recent federal court ruling that suggested uploading music files into shared folders on peer-to-peer Net networks is quite legal. The ruling reaffirmed a recent decision by the Copyright Board of Canada. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled that the Canadian Recording Industry Association didn't prove file-sharing constituted copyright violation - and artists and producers have no legal right to sue those who swap files without paying. The court decision inspired panic in the Canadian music industry; industry spokesmen were predicting the collapse of copyright control would cause severe financial hardship for people making their living from music. Last night's announcement was greeted with relief by the Juno crowd. "It means so much to everybody in this room," said Holger Peterson, president of Stony Plain Records. "This is a very important statement. "Copyrights have a value, and artists and songwriters would like to get paid for the use of their music. For the minister to confirm tonight that she's on our side, that's encouraging." But not everyone in the room was convinced. Canadian Idol winner Ryan Malcolm expressed skepticism, and suggested the Canadian music biz find a way to live with file-sharers. "Whether people download or not, as long as they're listening to music," he said. "I think it's a challenge for the industry, to try and find a new way to survive." |
Even though the artists may not get paid for users downloading their music in Canada, file sharing would surely promote their music and thus bring larger a audience to their concerts. While artists can make plenty from concerts, it does little for the music industry however since they rely on CD sales for their income. This likely means that even if artists are content with users sharing its music, it looks like law changes are going to be the only way to keep the music industry happy also.
Feel free to discuss and read more about file sharing and its legal issues on our Music Downloads, P2P & Legal Issues Forum.
Source: CANOE - Cnews
