Canada to change copyright laws

Written by tinfoil on Sunday, 04 April 2004 20:19

In an attempt to reverse a stunning move by the Canadian courts ruling that the CRIA had not proved file-sharing was illegal, Heritage Minister Helene Scherrer has vowed to change the laws.

Federal Heritage Minister Helene Scherrer yesterday promised to plug the hole in Canadian law allowing people to legally download songs off the Internet without paying. Scherrer's announcement won loud applause from an audience of Canadian music industry types at yesterday's Juno Awards opening ceremony at City Hall, which also featured a staged 'surprise' appearance from Prime Minister Paul Martin.

'As minister of Canadian Heritage, I will, as quickly as possible, make changes to our copyright law,' said Scherrer yesterday.

The minister offered no details, but she was responding to the challenge posed by a recent federal court ruling that suggested uploading music files into shared folders on peer-to-peer Net networks is quite legal.

As a Canadian, I was as shocked to hear the courts recent ruling as others around the world were. While I don't approve of music piracy, I feel it points directly to problems within the music industry itself. Theft will always exist, but if they were to put out a product that consumers felt was a fair deal then piracy would most certainly decline.

I also fear that the current Liberal government will, in typical Canadian fashion, emulate our neighbours to the south and their anti-consumer copyright laws.

Do not misunderstand me. Copyright is there for a reason -- it is there to be sure people are properly compensated for their ideas and products. It is there to ensure that people are not ripped off by others claiming to be producing their own original work (ripping off others and claiming it is your own work? Isn't that what the current music industry is based on?). Copyright is necessary to ensure economic viability to various industries.

Unfortunately, the consumer gets no form of protection. We Canadians have been paying taxes on blank media for years to give us the right to make copies of music we own. True, the law as it was written was written very poorly and left this huge legal gotcha in place that would allow file-sharing. C'est la vie. Change the law to plug the gap, but don't go overboard, Minister Scherrer. There is an election coming up, afterall, and we computer users that the industry so loves to villify are a resourceful and well-informed bunch.

Source: http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/News/2004/04/03/407037.html.

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