CRIA: ‘vilifying young people’
p2p news / p2pnet:- The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) says it’s “disappointed” by CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) national polls released yesterday.
They implied that Canadians who don’t buy their music from the CRIA’s owners, EMI, Universal, Warner and Sony BMG, are shop-lifting thieves who cheat on exams and steal clothing.
“Canadians between 12 and 24 years of age are responsible for 78 per cent of illegal music downloading, even though they make up just 21 per cent of the population,” said one poll.
“Canadians between the ages of 18 and 29 are much more willing than other age groups to make illegal copies of software programs, cheat on exams or even shoplift,” said another.
And, “Nearly 27 per cent of younger people surveyed said they would consider cheating on a test or exam, compared with 10 per cent of the general population” and “Of those asked, six per cent of younger Canadians said they would leave a store without paying for a piece of clothing, compared with two per cent of the population at large”.
CIPPIC welcomed CRIA attempts to put estimates to file-sharing, “but to draw conclusions about the impact of file-sharing on creativity, innovation and economic harm to major-label music companies without even mentioning Canada’s private copying regime just doesn’t tell the full story,” says staff counsel David Fewer.
“Between 2000 and 2004, the music industry collected over $127 million dollars from levies designed to compensate the music industry for private copying of music by Canadians.
“The industry wants to have its cake and eat it too.”
The CRIA says Canadians use p2p as their principal music source of music but, “We should be talking about ways to make this technology work to the advantage of both Canadian artists and music fans,” says Fewer. “Instead, we see a continuation of the major labels’ strategy of vilifying young people and suing customers.”
CIPPIC also questioned the CRIA’s suggestion that downloading is responsible for recent declines in record sales.
“This has simply not been proven”, says Fewer. “There are many other likely reasons for revenue decline, including fewer albums released, increased competition from other forms of entertainment (e.g., DVDs), and general economic conditions. Indeed, recent studies show that file-sharing can actually lead to increased sales, as fans test tracks online before purchasing CDs. It is telling that CRIA did not release figures on this particular issue.”
A 2005 survey of 600 UK music fans, reported in the Guardian Online, (July 27, 2005) found those who share tracks online also spent four and a half times as much on digital music as those who don’t, says CIPPIC, adding:
“Recent research out of Japan by a Keio University economics professor concluded that ‘Winny’, the most popular P2P application in Japan, has had no effect on CD sales in Japan. In fact, the study found that P2P allows consumers to discover new music and so promotes music sales.”
Fewer was also troubled by the CRIA’s “unexamined claim” that ever increasing intellectual property rights support Canadian competitiveness and innovation.
“We encourage innovation by giving Canadians the opportunity to do build on existing knowledge, not by frustrating researchers and entrepreneurs with ever-tighter copyright laws,” he says. But the CRIA wants to eliminate essential user rights that enable research into digital security and software inter-operability and, “If Canadian policy makers are serious about seizing the Internet’s potential to secure future economic growth, we should focus on creating opportunities for Canadian artists and innovators, not choking them off.”
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See:-
cheat on exams – Canadians are thieves: CRIA, September 30, 2005
no effect on CD sales – Is p2p killing CD sales?, March 28, 2005
September 30th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
Can I sue for slander? Or am I not understanding the use of the term ’slander’ as it applies to lawsuits?
October 1st, 2005 at 1:19 pm
Upset about what you read? Write your member of parliament. This is who CRIA is targeting their nonsense to as they lobby government to make radical changes to Canadian copyright law, and to make the currently tabled Bill C-60 even worse than it already is.
I also recommend letting CIPPIC know you support them. There is also work underway to create an EFF-like Canadian organization that will be membership driven, and everyone here should sign up to that as well. There will be articles on p2pnet as more information is known.