US labels to Canada: stop giving us free money, we prefer to sue

The Canadian Recording Industry Association (which represents multinational, US, and other non-Canadian record labels exclusively) has come out against the "private copying levy," a tax on blank media that it lobbied hard for over the past 15 years. The levy is charged against blank media, and the money raised is paid to copyright holders in exchange for the right to copy music and other works onto the media. CRIA apparently fears that the levy can be used to legalize P2P music-trading in Canada (an activity whose legality is in dispute right now), thereby breaking the P2P deadlock, decriminalizing millions of music fans, and paying millions of dollars to their members. The record industry giants would prefer to go on suing music fans and technology companies -- an activity that pays the record companies handsomely, while encouraging fans to defect from buying music in the future, and which does not pay one cent to any artist.

The Canadian Recording Industry Association this week quietly filed documents in the Federal Court of Appeal that will likely shock many in the industry. CRIA, which spent more than 15 years lobbying for the creation of the private copying levy, is now fighting to eliminate the application of the levy on the Apple iPod since it believes that the Copyright Board of Canada's recent decision to allow a proposed tariff on iPods to proceed "broadens the scope of the private copying exception to avoid making illegal file sharers liable for infringement."

Given that CRIA's members collect millions from the private copying levy, the decision to oppose its expansion may come as a surprise. Yet the move reflects a reality that CRIA has previously been loath to acknowledge - the Copyright Board has developed jurisprudence that provides a strong argument that downloading music on peer-to-peer networks is lawful in Canada. Indeed, CRIA President Graham Henderson provides a roadmap for the argument in his affidavit:

"First, the Board has stated, in obiter dicta, on several occasions that the Private Copying regime legalizes copying for the private use of the person making the copy, regardless of whether the source is non-infringing or not. Therefore, according to the Board, downloading an infringing track from the Internet is not infringing, as long as the downloaded copy is made onto an 'audio recording medium'...

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[#1 posted by dubdub , September 15, 2007 5:16 PM]

Speaking as one who has worked in the business - the music industry is not in it for the music - they're in it for the money. That's what makes it a business.

[#2 posted by staceface , September 15, 2007 6:00 PM]

Off topic, but I really liked "Scroogled" in Radar. It prompted me to look up your other work, and I'll be buying some of your books soon. Cheers, sf

[#3 posted by shabumike , September 15, 2007 7:34 PM]

I'd like to see the levy dropped and how Canadians react to frivolous lawsuits against teenagers and grannies. Bring it on, were ready for the copyfight wars....

[#4 posted by Peter , September 15, 2007 7:51 PM]

Hmmm... I wonder, idly. If the levy were repealed, would file sharing remain legal in cases where it was copied to a media purchased while it was still enforced? After all, the money was paid, and for that purpose.

[#5 posted by jphilby , September 15, 2007 9:58 PM]

On the other hand, the cro-magnon stupidity of the industry (sorry cro-magnons, what I meant was ...) will continue to drive listeners away from a model based in usury and fashion, toward a new model that's already rewarding artists and listeners.

As a result, pop music-making will move away from mass-market, star-based, promoted insipidity towards the inventive, garage originality which marked many of its finest moments.

Not as quick as an asteroid, but less bloody.

[#6 posted by Alys , September 16, 2007 10:18 AM]

I've stopped buying CD-Rs because of the copying levy, even though I only was using them for data backups. They don't yet charge the levy on DVD-Rs, so I use those instead.

Of the dozen or so albums I've purchased in the last few months, the majority were purchased at shows, or were direct downloads. The more money that goes to the artists, the better.

[#7 posted by epp_b , September 16, 2007 3:02 PM]

The stupidity of the entertainment industry really is astonishing.

[#8 posted by nick , September 17, 2007 11:00 AM]

How about taxing blank paper because people might print others' copyrighted texts on them? It's assinine.

Taxes on blank media are just so patently (pardon the pun) abusive, it's incredible to me that lawmakers even consider them.

Remember the attempts to tax blank cassettes here in the States? They failed, and somehow the record companies soldiered on, happily ripping off their artists as before.

[#9 posted by epp_b , September 17, 2007 8:26 PM]

I don't think the levy is necessarily a bad thing. You just have to get past the selfish, American idea of "I ain't payin' fer yer crap!".