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

From: "Chris Brand" <Chris_Brand _-at-_ spectrumsignal.com>
To: <discuss (at) list.digital-copyright.ca>
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 10:50:09 -0800

The CP article seems to have run all over the place.
We need the papers to get lots of letters to the editor about it,
particularly as it is so outrageous.

It was published in The (BC) Province :
http://www.canada.com/search/story.html?id=196b1c9d-9207-43d5-b572-2a18806f4b48
and also the Vancouver Sun :
http://www.canada.com/search/story.html?id=196b1c9d-9207-43d5-b572-2a18806f4b48

Here's my letter to the editors of those papers (Sent separately
to each, of course, with my name, full address and daytime phone).
Feel free to borrow as much of as little as you need.

Email addresses for these papers are :
provletters@png.canwest.com
sunletters@png.canwest.com

The article about musicians and copyright is very misleading.
 
First of all, yes, the Copyright Act was originally drafted in 1908, but it was
revised at the music industry's request as recently as 1997.
 
Secondly, if downloading harms the music industry, they have only
themselves to blame for asking for Private Copying to be added to
the Act back then. And that's probably the biggest of the "loopholes"
they're now upset about.
 
Thirdly, music sales may have dropped by a third in a few years -
that is vague enough that it could be true, but most of that drop was
in 2001-2002, when sales of just about everything dropped dramatically.
If we look at the most recent sales statistics, we see that Canadian
CD sales have been increasing (by 2% in 2003-2004), not decreasing.
 
Finally, the quote "even if we catch you, chances are the courts
are going to let you go" presumably refers to the Federal Court
decision against the CRIA. If you read the decision itself, you'll
discover that the main reasoning behind it was that the music
industry failed to provide any evidence that songs for which they
hold the copyright were in fact uploaded. Courts like to see evidence,
not just allegations.
 
So in summary, the music industry successfully lobbied for changes 
to the Copyright Act in 1997 and now doesn't like the results
of getting what they asked for, failed to provide evidence to win their
court case, and claim that the drop in sales a few years ago was
due to filesharing rather than the more obvious explanation -
the recession.
 
And now they want us to take their advice on how the Copyright
Act should be changed again ? I suggest that we instead let
them lie in the bed that they've made.


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