[d@DCC] Letter to the Financial Post re: Rockers sing the copyright blues

From: Russell McOrmond <russell _-at-_ flora.ca>
To: General Copyright Discussions <discuss (at) list.digital-copyright.ca>
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 11:19:52 -0500 (EST)

Please help get letters out to all the media that reported on the events
yesterday.  We have a huge public education campaign we need to lead.


Here is what I just sent.
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=48fdcf20-521a-4add-be89-6b46e567b811

In reply to: Rockers sing the copyright blues

  This article is factually incorrect in a number of ways.  First, music
downloading for private use is not illegal.  This is not because of a hole
in the copyright act, unless you consider the 1997 revision to the
copyright act to create the Private Copying regime a hole.  That revision
was created due to the lobbying of the recording industry, the same people
who now claim they are loosing money because of the changes to the act
that they asked for.

  While downloading of music is perfectly legal in Canada, uploading
(distributing) is not.  The recording industry did not lose their recent
case trying to get the names of the 29 P2P users because of a hole in the
copyright act, but because they did not provide adequate evidence that
they owned files being distributed.  It is important to realize that many
musicians authorize their music to be distributed by P2P systems as a way
to get free advertisement, and that claims that all P2P usage is illegal
is entirely incorrect.

  What CRIA is really fighting against is competition, not "piracy".  
They are worried that if more musicians adopt modern business models and
modern distribution methods that these outdated middle-men will become
redundant.  They claim they want to modernize the act, when in fact all
their proposals have the opposite effect: of imposing their outdated
business models on the entire of Canadian creativity as a way to hold back
progress in the arts and science.

Russell McOrmond
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Webmaster for http://www.digital-copyright.ca/

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Code is Law: how software code regulates the activities of citizens,
 and acts similar to law.  How do we ensure transparency/accountability?  
 http://www.flora.ca/russell/drafts/code-is-law.html
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