The RIAA does not have jurisdiction in Canada, at least not yet. It is limited to the USA. Yes, there are many countries where music downloads are not closely monitored or are completely ignored. ------------ Canada hasn't updated copyright legislation to cover digital music. Consequently, it has the highest online piracy rate per capita in the world, according to the Intl. Federation of the Phonographic Industry; the CRIA says 1.6 billion music files are swapped annually. In 2004 the Supreme Court ruled that Internet service providers don't have to pay royalties to artists and songwriters for illegally downloaded digital music files. Last March, the Federal Court ruled music file-sharing on the Internet was legal and that neither downloading nor sharing digital music online infringes copyright. http://www.rapidnewswire.com/candownload.htm Canada’s Copyright Board has found that it is not legally required that the source of copied media be legally owned. This is part of the reason for the federal court’s ruling against the CRIA in a lawsuit that the CRIA launched in 2004 against twenty-nine large-volume file-sharers. The verdict stated that “merely downloading and making music files available on one’s hard drive does not infringe copyright under current Canadian law.” As of February 2003, approximately 200 million people worldwide used P2P networks. A Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) poll in spring 2004 stated that the number of people using Kazaa increased from 8% in the fall of 2001 to 26% (CIPPIC). Many people in the record industry blame a decrease in record sales on the phenomenon. In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has launched lawsuits against individuals with a large number of files stored on their computers for swapping. In Canada, the issue hasn’t had as much attention, although recently the CRIA has requested Canadian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to give up names of subscribers committing the crime of illegal file-sharing. http://cdhi.mala.bc.ca/test/issue2/essay3.htm

This is provided as a supplement to Alatea's discussion on the situation in Canada, where individuals are allowed to make copies of recordings that they have purchased for personal use. The extent to which a copy can be shared with others is limited, though. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has this to say: "Canada's music industry has been the hardest hit of any country in the world by illegal file sharing. Retail sales are down by more than $425 million since 1999. In the last year, staff layoffs at record companies have topped 20 per cent. If this decline continues, there will be less money to invest in Canadian artists and Canadian music." - Brian Robertson, President, CRIA, 10/2003. Which echoes: "In England, home tape recording is eroding the industry to such an extent - and this is not an exaggeration - that in two or three years there may not be an idustry." - Brian Robertson, President, CRIA, 11/1982. [Credit goes to UHF Magazine for these quotes.] 'Allowing' consumers to make copies of the music they have purchased for their own use has been opposed by CRIA for decades. Not all of the artists are so adamantly opposed, however. The "retail sales" figures that are bandied about are misleading, because they don't take into consideration the broadening of the sales base to include other forms of entertainment. CD sales are certainly down, cassettes have vanished, movie audiences are shrinking, but LP sales are up and DVD sales are soaring. Hmm, is there any relationship? If I have $100 to spend on entertainment every month, where will I spend it? I don't listen to 'illegal' - a civil law issue, not one of criminal law - downloads, but I do appreciate how they can both hurt and benefit artists. The industry is trapped in an untenable position, trying to support an inefficient and costly business model on reduced sales. Instead of trying to reform themselves, they attack their customers. How many people have purchased CDs that won't play on a CD player, because of some ineffective anti-piracy scheme? And how many of these have been cracked and are available for download, free of charge and free of hassles? ------------------------------------------------------------ Re: "it exposes new artists and new music" I exposes more than the new - it also supports the old. An article by Janis Ian (published in UHF Magazine, March 2003, Issue #66) goes into this matter in some depth. I will let her speak: "My site ... gets an average of 75,000 hits per year. Not bad for someone whose last record was released in 1975. When Napster was running full-tilt, we received about 100 hits a month from people who'd downloaded "Society's Child" or "At Seventeen" for free, then decided they wanted more information. Of those 100 people (and these are only the ones who let us know they'd found the site), 15 bought CDs. Not huge sales, right? No record company is interested in 180 extra sales a year. But that translates into $2700, which is a lot of money in my book. And that doesn't include the ones who bought CDs in stores or who came to my shows. Every time we make a few songs available on my web site, sales of all the CDs go up. A lot. As an artist with an in-print catalogue that dates back to 1965, I'd be thrilled to see sales on my old catalogue rise." [The article at this point includes statements from the RIAA website, discussing how sales have been hurt by free downloads.] "Who's to say that any of those people would have bought the CDs if the songs weren't available for free. I can't find a single study on this. I think no one's run one because everyone is afraid of the truth - most of the downloads are by people who want to try an artist out or who can't find the music in print." "Sales of blank CDs have grown? You bet. I back up all my files onto CD. When I buy a new CD, I make a copy for my car, a copy for upstairs, and a copy for my partner. That's three blank discs per CD. So I alone account for about 750 blank CDs yearly." "Why do most people download music? To hear new music or records that have been deleted and are no longer available for purchase. Most people can't afford to spend $15.99 to experiment. That's why listening booths (which labels fought against too) are such a success. You can't hear new music on radio these days; I live in Nashville, "Music City USA", and we have exactly one station willing to play a non-top-40 format." "In the hysteria of the moment, everyone is forgetting the main way an artist becomes sucessful - exposure. Without exposure, no one comes to shows, no one buys CDs, no one enables you to earn a living doing doing what you love. I've created 25+ albums for major labels and I've never once received a royalty check that didn't show I owed them money." [This article is available in full at http://www.uhfmag.com/Issue66/Issue66.html] The business model that the major labels promote today limits your ability to play music to the devices they select, while they sell you compressed songs for a dollar or two a copy. Buy enough and you've paid the full price of a CD to download lo- or mid-fi compressed music. Wouldn't it be great if they gave away one or two songs from each album and then sold you the album, complete and uncompressed, in a store, on-line, or even downloadable so you can burn it yourself? About half the CDs I buy new are purchased directly from artists or small labels and distributors over the internet. One label, Magnatune, has an interesting approach to business. Give their site a look and see how one small label is trying to do something new (http://www.magnatune.com/info/why).