Turning Canada into a mini-US
Theft (?), n. [OE. thefte, AS. þiéf'ebe, þ'dff'ebe, þeóf'ebe. See Thief.]
(Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny. &hand; To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner’s consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.
ARTFL Project: Webster Dictionary, 1913 -
p2pnet.net News View:- Every month more – many more – than a billion thieves steal music files from the owners of the major record label cartel.
The statistic is from p2p research firm Big Champagne and ‘thieves’ is how the cartel paints the increasing numbers of people around the world who choose p2p networks and the likes of allofmp3.com over the grossly over-priced, pitifully under-stocked, cartel-backed sites such as iTunes, the single viable corporate music ‘service’.
In America, anything goes. There, the cartel routinely extorts mothers, fathers and their children with dire threats of what’ll happen if they refuse to pay ‘settlement’ cash.
Some10,306 people have so far been victimized in this way. Not one of them has actually been convicted of anything in a court or by a judge, and yet they’re pilloried as criminals.
Thanks to Big Music and the movie studio cartel, the concept of innocent until proved guilty is ignored and it’s all down to US copyright-slash-intellectual property laws and the many and various vested interest Acts Hollywood has succeeded in forcing into law.
The labels have raked in at least $30 million from settlements, it’s estimated. But they have yet to account for a penny of it. What’s certain is that none of the money has gone to the contracted performers or the allegedly financially deprived support workers who are regularly used as excuses for the twisted sue ‘em all marketing campaigns in North America and elsewhere.
More than a billion crooks?
Big Music is now trying to turn Canada into a mini-America and, “The intense lobbying for stronger copyright legislation in response to music downloading, which culminated in last month’s lobby day on Parliament Hill, is premised on three key pillars,” wrote Canadian IP expert Michael Geist recently.
“First, that the Canadian recording industry has sustained significant financial losses in recent years due to decreased music sales. Second, that those losses can be attributed to peer-to-peer file sharing. Third, that the losses have materially harmed Canadian artists.
“The time has come to acknowledge that each of these pillars is a myth.”
And, more than a billion crooks? Another myth, and a patently ridiculous one at that. And yet it’s repeated over and over by the mainstream media as if it’s based on reliable information from credible sources.
In file sharing, no one has stolen anything, no sales have been lost and no money has changed hands.
People aren’t crooks. They don’t get up in the morning bent on cheating the corporate record labels and movie studios.
But they do react to unfair practices, which is precisely what’s happening when they use p2p networks and applications to share music and moves are doing.
They’re protesting.
The difference between street marches and letters to the editor of the past, however, is protests in the 21st century have a very definite effect and can’t be ignored, as they’ve been in the past.
Changing the copyright laws
Some people argue Big Music’s defeat in Canada is no more than set-back. However, that’s an extremly narrow-minded view.
The case was sparked by the fact the labels have so far been denied what they’ve come to see as their right in the US: the ability to force ISPs to hand over customer identities.
Whether the cartel ultimately brow-beats the wishy-washy Canadian government into changing the copyright laws to suit the cartels is beside the point.
Independent p2p file sharing is here to stay in Canada, in America and everywhere else in the world. And nothing the corporate sector can do now or in the future will change that.
The days when vested interests could exert total control over what people saw and heard are gone forever.
The entertainment industry may get the names of a handful of people in Canada and elsewhere who’ve shared files with each other online, but that won’t mean a thing.
The cartels can no longer piss all over the people they contemptuously call ‘consumers’.
The customers are in charge again.
JN
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
May 22nd, 2005 at 8:14 pm
“Thanks to Big Music and the movie studio cartel, the concept of innocent until proved guilty is ignored”
Sure if you want to swallow industry PR where settlement =! guilty in a court of law.
blah blah blah more rhetoric … blah blah micheal geist blah blah blah …
You know I like this site but this kind of article is almost as bad as the other side with their public relations hounds twisting things the way they want to see them. Ever thought of actually doing something about it in meat space rather than preach to the converted on-line who are already indignant and pissed off about the unfairness of it all? You’d think with the amount of press this gets here, there would have more than the recent 500 (give or take a few – I know there are more but too lazy to look up the actual stat) signed petitions to the Minister of Heritage who is overseeing the revision of the Copyright Act in Canada. You want change take it to the people who can DO SOMETHING about the change, whining on here is kinda pointless. Start a grassroots campaign, post copies of the petition at libraries, write letters to newspaper editors, get the word out.
May 22nd, 2005 at 9:37 pm
I agree that things need to be moved to meat-space. What Jon is doing is an important part of this. He is writing to an online constituency that probably would not know about the petition to government (not to the Heritage Minister) without his additional attention.
Alternative media is important. The mainstream newspaper editors are not going to offer the same level of diverse opinions as alternative media is.
If not sure what to do to help, just ask. The petition is having an important impact, and feedback from bureaucrats suggests that it is working quite well and we are getting noticed. We need to somehow reach as many of those 308 individuals that sit in parliament, as they are the group of people who are setting the tone for what will happen. We aren’t focusing on just the cabinet ministers, as even the most otherwise quiet back-bencher can have an important impact.
BTW: The constantly updated statistics on the number of signatures received and tabled in parliament can be seen at http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/signatures.shtml
May 22nd, 2005 at 11:33 pm
One of the things that is really hard to see from the people that see this site, is just who reads without commenting. The fact that a few pro-media lock-everything-up types actually take an effort to post something media pro is an indication that this and its sister sites headed for the same protests against the actions that the RIAA and MPAA is being taken notice of. Were there no impact from these sites they would continue on their blithe way, not in any form acknowledging that web sites such as this one exist. You may take that as a backdoor compliment that they are trying to do damage control to the places they don’t control; such as major media. They have no leverage in these sites to say if you don’t toe the line there will be financial consenquences as they can the broadcasters and the like.
Those that are getting more unfiltered and unhomogenized news from sites such as this are those that think, not those that accept what they are spoon feed on the nightly news. While the net is still relatively new in this aspect, the users of the net are growing everyday. Those that discover just how badly the news is slanted by this action believe less and less what they hear on the 5 o’clock news. Worse for those that would slant that news, they are telling their friends stuff they never heard of on the news and when asked where that info came from; well you know the answer. More and more folks are learning that if they really want to know what goes on it won’t be from public news and radio.
The issues and the more than just black and white shows on the net. China is doing its dangest to control that access to the outside. Even though they have all sorts of blocks, filters, and tattletails to tell who and where, still the unvarnished truth is getting through. Little Shrub would dearly love to control the net. I suspect these same sort of actions the Chinese authorities have done are in place with only monitor and not actively blocking taking place. Why should that interest the average consumer? Because you can bet any sort of marshall law will activate such blockage if it is in place. If it isn’t there now, it won’t be long.
The RIAA and MPAA want to control access to material they have copyright on strickly to control price and who gets to hear their stuff. In that effort, is all this crap about theft, infringement, and on line sales. There is so much hype to that side you can’t hear the facts for the BS. Tis a sad day when government allows the mega-corporation the ability to monitor, say what goes for products and what won’t, and paint another picture that tries to make them look good. If you have a mind capable of thinking, if you want unvarnished news without the slant, if you are fed up with the crap that passes as news then you are as much an enemy in the long haul as a revolutionary.
May 23rd, 2005 at 1:07 am
Look to the right.
No – not THAT right ; )
Look to the advert on the immediate right of this page which starts with “All Canadians,” click it and then …
Cheers!
May 23rd, 2005 at 7:48 am
I know, I’ve been reading Jon’s site since before he moved to BC.
But my point is and will always be this is useless without some action behind it. I know I used to be an advocate in the mental health field working on implementing changes to policy in hospitals and law (mental health act, privacy legislation, guardianship act) sitting around and bitching doesn’t count I’m sorry to say, the people we elect NEED to hear our views. The people who make the laws, NEED to hear it. Considering the number of people upset by how things are going with CRIA it was saddening to see only 500 or so signed petitions submitted recently. So yeah the armchair quarter backing and point counter point gets to be very tiring, frustrating and I just lost it.
As I said to Jon once, “Mostly what I have noticed is with the exception of some deeply committed people, the Canadians I have met are pretty apathetic about it all – which is very sad.” and its why I don’t advocate any more, I got burnt out because of apathy in my field. I got to a point where I questioned what the point of it all was. I commend people like Jon, Russel, CIPPIC, Michael Geist etc they don’t have to do this but they do and deserve some kudos from the largely apathetic among us cause without them CRIA would (might?) get its way. I just wish there were more who are willing to fight rather than passively sit and do nothing.
-Anne
May 23rd, 2005 at 11:45 pm
The correct way to protest is it use ONLY those websites that offer downloads under reasonable license terms…
http://magnatune.com/
http://www.iuma.com/
http://www.mp3.com.au/
http://www.opsound.org/
There are heaps of places to legitimately download music with no DRM and no lawyers coming after you. It just requires enough people to totally ignore the music cartels and they will die. Don’t play their game.
May 23rd, 2005 at 11:54 pm
I live in the UK. I am looking for some way to get involved. Not emails and crap like that. REAL involvement in grass roots movements. However getting people from online pissing and moaning to offline action is a hard task without real direction and instruction on how to do so. Most people don’t understand how political, social, economical and law systems work and can barely get their asses down to the polling station to put their X in the box of the party they like but don’t actually understand the policies of.
May 24th, 2005 at 1:10 am
Emails aren’t crap – if there are enough of them.
That aside, the *All Canadians are Rights Holders* link on the upper right leads to a petition that’s made out of dead trees and goes to the Canadian parliament physically, not by email.
And you’d be surprised how many people in ‘meat space’ (I’ve never seen that phrase before) check in regularly here.
Meanwhile, p2pnet and sites like it ARE grassroots. (Believe me. heh) And they DO have a place in what’s going on. Apart from anything else, they provide permanent listening areas for voices which haven’t been heard before.
(And Hi Anne – it’s been a while. Good to hear from you again : )
Cheers!