CRIA vs Canadian file sharers
p2pnet.net News:- Music label efforts to sue people who use p2p software to share music online could “threaten to change the expectation that everyone’s anonymous when they’re online,” says Angela Pacienza’s CP report on Day Two of the court case where Big Music is attempting to use Canada’s legal system to impose its will on Canadians.
If the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) convinces Justice Konrad von Finckenstein that he should indeed order ISPs to reveal the names of 29 users to the CRIA, it would mean the loss of anonymity of anything shared, argued Alex Cameron representing the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.
Owned by the Big Five record labels, the CRIA wants von Finckenstein to force Bell Canada, Shaw Communications, Rogers Communications, Videotron and Telus Corp to hand over the identities of the 29 to the music industry.
If it succeeds, Big Music will use the CRIA to portray them as criminals.
More than 1,000 people have been, or are being, sued in the US by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) in an ongoing legal intimidation campaign.
Without exception, every case has been settled out of court.
The music label enforcement unit also used some of the teenaged victims in a Pepsi Super Bowl advertising promotion which falsely attributed criminal behaviour to them.
“If your neighbor’s 11 year old son were stealing your newspaper, would you talk to the neighbor first, or just call the police and press charges?” – asks Andy Jordan, the father of one of ther first US teenagers to be sued by Big Music.
“If your neighbor’s barking dog were waking you up at 5 am every morning, would you speak to the neighbor first, or just toss an explosive through his window? So why won’t the CRIA attempt to contact you to resolve this problem before they take you to court and smear your names in the press as if you were major criminals?
“The answer is that they don’t want to resolve the problem with you in the first place. What they really want is to turn the lives of you and your loved ones into a cheap publicity stunt for their own benefit.”
Pacienza quotes Public Interest Clinic lawyer Howard Knopf as saying teenagers and parents without large sums of money to “battle a team of lawyers” will be forced to settle “out of monetary fears and limitations”.
“These folks are civilians, not commercial pirates,” said Knopf. “All defendants will have no practical choice but to settle with CRIA.”
Knopf also argued that file sharing doesn’t mean an individual is uploading songs with the intention of mass distribution.
P2p applications allow people to download from each other, and since the Copyright Board has deemed downloading legal in Canada, there is little evidence the 29 John and Jane Does did anything wrong, says the CP story, adding that von Finckenstein is expected to rule by week’s end.
March 16th, 2004 at 1:43 am
Trust me, they will…. unless bell and rogers get off their fat asses and argue…
March 16th, 2004 at 3:01 am
I think everyone agrees that at some point the recording industry is going to realize they a fighting a losing battle, the technology to hide your ISP address already exists, and is being used by more and more P2P users. Every downloader of music realizes that at some point we will have to renumerate the artists for their work, knowing that if we don’t, there will be no more music.
The question is how? and I think we as file sharers should determine how that should happen, the dramatic growth of pay per use download sites is astounding, and is probably they way we should go.
As a music lover I would gladly pay 99 cents for a track I like, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay $ 14.00 or $ 15.00 for an album that has 2 or 3 songs I like, and the rest crap.
KT
March 16th, 2004 at 5:16 pm
even 99 cents is to much. the record industry are greedy bastards who should get nothing. if they win there will be other ways found to share music. all this does is keep the cria and lawyers making sacks of money
March 16th, 2004 at 8:32 pm
You notice though it is mainly the CRIA not the artists complaining. Most artists get the shaft anyway from the record industry…I have a friend who is an artist, they told me that companies like columbia house don’t pay them for thier CDs given/ordered by members. It was like every 10th album is a free one or promo which these clubs use…my point is the CRIA keeps screaming about the artists but in reality most money made by the atist is merchandise and concert sales…would seem to me that is the music were cheaper or even free, that would result in more fans, bugger draws at venues and merchandising.
March 30th, 2004 at 12:04 am
Actually, as a musician, songwriter, and an artist I have a better insight into this whole file-sharing debate that consumers don’t get to see. You may think that you are hurting the record labels (and to a minor degree, you probably are) but trust me the top execs aren’t really the ones who get hurt by file sharing. The top label execs won’t loose their livelihoods over this. So if your arguments are, “I’m screwing those money-grubbing bastards”, you are misinformed.
The people that DO get hurt by file sharing, are not only the musicians– the ones you claim to be fans of– but every person from the recording engineers and assistants, to the workers in the mail room of the record labels, to the factory workers at the CD pressing plant, to the minimum wage employees of the local record store. You aren’t screwing the labels; you are screwing all the people who are working their collective butts off to get those discs on the store shelves.
True the label top execs and the CRIA are jerks for their intimidation tactics. Yes, most artists do get the shaft from the labels, but WE DO DESERVE TO MAKE A LIVING FROM OUR MUSIC. You are aiding the labels/ CRIA to screw the bands. How is that for a kick in the pants? Those people who claim to love our music are also cheating us.
Don’t get me wrong, burning a copy of a disc for a friend isn’t the problem. People used to do it all the time with cassettes. It is so marginal as a dent in sales, that it is laughable. It is giving it for free to thousands of people that is the issue.
If you put months of your life working your butt off at your job, would you put up with someone patting you on the head saying, “I love what you have accomplished, but sorry I am not willing to pay you for your work, since I can get it for free…”? I don’t think you would. It would be an infringement on your rights; slave labor.
Would you live out of your suitcases with no fixed address, give up a chance of a stable family life, steady income, and put your health at risk for months straight (trust me, if you get a cold on the road, it is hard to shake)? That is what touring is really like. Forget the myths of “party all the time”. The road is hard and you live like a criminal on the run. You wear out your youth, health and sanity.
This is what you are asking the musicians to do for you. Would you do the same for them?
Maybe to you this is just your entertainment, but this is many people’s lives. You spit in the face of each of these people that put their work into each of those CDs that you didn’t pay for. Maybe the record execs will always have job opportunities, if that is your argument– but can Joe the cashier at the record store say the same?
Think about it.
April 26th, 2004 at 2:55 am
I really hope that bell and rogers do something about protecting their customers.