p2pnet - rss feed: Big Music sings the blues
p2pnet.net News:- The record label cartel is reporting increases in revenues with DVD sales continuing to see “extraordinary growth”.
And yet its Canadian manager has been instructed to say that unless Canada’s federal court reverses an earlier decision, “It could cost millions and lead to more job losses.”
The number of overall units of music formats shipped to retail distribution channels increased by 4.4% year-over-year, a 3.3% increase in retail value compared to 2003, reports the cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
The number of CDs shipped in the US last year rose 5.3%, a 2.7% increase in value compared to the previous year, it states, and, “The DVD music video format continues to experience extraordinary growth, with a 66 percent increase in music shipments from record companies to retail outlets and special markets distribution channels and a 51.8 percent increase in value (list price).”
And cartel member EMI felt able to give Joss Stone, a teenager it has under contract, $100,000 worth of uncut diamonds as a birthday present.
But CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) boss Graham Henderson (above right) is preaching gloom and doom for the Big Four record labels as chief justice John D. Richard and justices Marc Noel and J. Edgar Sexton prepare to hear arguments in BMG Canada v John Doe, in which the labels are trying to force Canadian ISPs to reveal the identities of 29 people accused of sharing music online.
“On Wednesday, the Canadian music industry will appear before the Federal Court of Appeal in Toronto in an attempt to overturn an April, 2004, ruling that essentially legalized file sharing in Canada,” says the Financial Post.
In a ringing defeat for the record labels, Federal Court Justice Konrad Von Finckenstein roundly criticized CRIA ‘evidence’ as he dismissed its bid to bring Canada into line with the US where the labels now routinely launch legal actions against people, including children, who prefer the diversity of the Net to cookie-cutter industry ‘product’.
“Though music sales were flat in 2004, Mr. Henderson said the industry’s retail sales have dropped $465-million since they peaked in 1999,” says the Financial Post.
The music industry has never been able to even vaguely demonstrate that one file shared equals even one sale lost and perhaps, as Britain’s prestigious The Economist recently said, “the decline in global sales is indicative of a far greater problem for the music industry - consumers simply think that many of its products are just not worth paying for.”
Moreover, the subpoenas launched against file sharers haven’t diminished the action in the real world of music where p2p file sharing is on the increase, cartel assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Nor is sharing music a crime in Canada or anywhere else. No money changes hands, and no sales are lost as a direct result.
The music industry will face some hurdles in its appeal, the FP quotes IP lawyer Mark Hayes as saying: “Their big challenge is that they have to convince the Court of Appeal that the decision was legally incorrect. They need to get the court to confirm that Justice Von Finckenstein’s musings on the law aren’t binding.”
Will they succeed?
“The evidence hasn’t changed, ” CIPPIC counsel David Fewer told p2pnet. “And the evidence was horribly weak. I’m very confident that the CRIA’s evidence is no better today than it was a year ago, and the federal court of appeal will say it’s inadequate to give the extraordinary remedy the CRIA is seeking.”
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
Financial Post - File-sharing crunch time, April 19, 2005
roundly criticized - Keep on swapping! Cdn file sharers told, p2pnet, March 31, 2004
The Economist - Grokster and StreamCast face the music, March 24, 2005
horribly weak - BMG Canada v John Doe, p2pnet, April 18, 2005
April 19th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
wtf? so they are making more money now… but still say they are losing money because of filesharers? those greedy bastards… “we’re not making enough money…” >: (
April 19th, 2005 at 7:44 pm
“Nor is sharing music a crime in Canada or anywhere else. No money changes hands, and no sales are lost as a direct result.”
I know this is not the intention, but be very careful not to play into the hands of the music cartel. They are trying to convince parliament that there is a hole in the copyright act that disallows them from suing individuals who distribute music owned by the big labels without permission. As you have reported, the reason that the big labels lost the case with Justice Von Finckenstein is because of lack of evidence, not a problem with the copyright act.
Contrary to the incorrect musings of the Heritage minister, the recording industry already has all the tools it needs to sue those using P2P to distribute music without authorization. All CRIA members need to do is provide adequate evidence, something that is not all that hard to do.
I am drafting a reply letter to the Heritage Ministers office which will ask the following:
“I must conclude that either the Minister is not aware of the facts of the case, or that she wishes to amend the copyright act such that the legacy recording industry would no longer need to provide evidence of wrongdoing in order to launch lawsuits against children. Is this really the message that the Minister and the Liberals wish to go to elections with?”
P2P and other Internet-aware Canadians should try to make this an issue in the upcoming election. The NDP has already come forward with a more modern viewpoint, lead by NDP critic and musician Charlie Angus. The Conservatives have mentioned copyright in their platform, and need to have constituents try to get some details. Will it be the Liberals that are entirely left in the dark ages?
Unauthorized P2P is harmful to you and I!
While P2P is legal because it has important uses authorized by many modern copyright holders, unauthorized distribution is not legal. It is important for your readers to understand this, and to know that they risk outrageous financial penalties if found guilty of unauthorized distribution via P2P. It does not matter whether no money changed hand or no sales were lost, as a copyright holder does not have to prove harm in order to have the courts inflict statutory damages against an infringer.
Quoting from the Copyright Act: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/
“Statutory damages
38.1 (1) Subject to this section, a copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of damages and profits referred to in subsection 35(1), an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the proceedings, with respect to any one work or other subject-matter, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $500 or more than $20,000 as the court considers just.”
My advice to anyone who is distributing music without authorization is to stop. While we all recognize you are not harming them financially, you are helping them with their lobbying efforts. You are also harming the marketing efforts of those modern musicians who are authorizing their music to be distributed on P2P systems, making these musicians unfairly compete for attention with music owned by the major labels who are lobbying against our collective interests.
Russell McOrmond - http://digital-copyright.ca/
April 20th, 2005 at 12:29 am
Big music sees every file shared as a consumer who didn’t buy an entire album of crap to get the one track that they wanted. This is where they get their “massive losses” figures from. Never mind that they might be counting several tracks off the same album.