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/