In P2P Canada Stands Alone

To my amazement I just found out that Canada is the ONLY country in the English speaking world without a law against peer-to-peer sharing of music files. Being shocked I decided to look into this, and what I found was even more surprising.

At first I just figured there was no law, period, but it turns out that there is - though it is one that makes P2P sharing of music files totally legal in Canada, at least for personal and private use. Let me try to summarize, if possible.

In 2003, the Copyright Board of Canada associated the word "uploading" with distribution, an act that is not legal according to the Copyright Act of Canada. In 2004, a Canadian court judge dealt a blow to the CRIA by issuing a decision that states, in part, "The mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution."

Under appeal in 2005, that decision was set aside, without any other ruling put in place instead. This left the act of "uploading" totally open to interpretation, and a new bill has yet to be passed to address this question.

So, three years later, the only thing we know for sure is that it is legal in Canada to download music files for personal and private use, that distribution is not legal, and uploading is not considered distribution (for now).

Three years is a long time to leave the artists hanging, and costing the industry millions of dollars in lost revenue, even though in Canada we also have a levy on blank recording media, supposedly to offset this loss of revenue, but it is not enough. The artists deserve their copyrights and the public should respect the protection of copyrighted materials.

There are many alternatives to peer-to-peer, which have many benefits, the least of which is protecting your computer from unwanted malicious software infections (viruses, spyware, etc.) The number of customer's computers that I have serviced because of this problem speaks for itself. With P2P sites, you never know what you are going to get with a download, and more often then not it is a hit & miss scenario before you find the actual music file you want - intact, in full, high quality, and without infection.

The biggest alternative, of course, is iTunes. At just $0.99 per song, you get exactly what you are looking for from one search result, high quality, and no infections. You don't even need a credit card when you purchase the iTunes card from a local retailer.

Another big company, Sony/BMG, just recently announced they are working on offering unlimited downloads of their licensed music files for a flat monthly charge of between $9-$12. This could be a major shift in unlimited downloading, but we will have to wait and see how the details iron out.

Thanks for reading, and remember...

" Think Outside the Browser! "

Troy Roach
OnSite Technology
519-40-GEEKS
519-404-3357
www.onsitetechnology.ca


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