Canadians can legally download peer-to-peer music files, although uploading them is still illegal, the Canadian Copyright Board ruled Friday.
So long as music is being recorded purely for personal use, and not being sold, rented, or otherwise disseminated to other people, its use is legal, the board said.
It does not matter whether the source of the recording is a pre-owned track, a borrowed CD, or a track downloaded from the Internet, the board said. The combination of the latter two rules means that recording a CD for a friend is illegal, but handing the CD to the same friend and letting them make a copy for their own use is legal.
Incorrect Interpretation?
The Copyright Board's interpretation is wrong, and is likely to be found so by the courts, insists the Canadian Recording Industry Association.
"We welcome the confirmation that the distribution of someone else's music, known as uploading, is illegal," Richard Pfohl, general counsel for the CRIA says.
Pfohl also noted that the regulatory board did recognize that in some cases, it will be up to the Canadian courts of civil jurisdiction to decide what is illegal.
"We also welcome the board's recognition that it is up to the court of civil jurisdiction to decide whether copying is illegal. It is a criminal matter in Canada, as elsewhere, and people engaging in copying should be aware that they might be subject to criminal law," Pfohl says.
A copy of music from an illegal source is itself illegal, Pfohl insists. "It compounds the crime, it's a further violation and there's no reason for thinking that the new copy is somehow laundered," he says.
Money Matters
The board also imposed a levy on manufacturers and importers of MP3 music players with non-removable memory, depending on their storage capacity. Players with memory capacity of less than 1GB will be subject to a levy of $1.52, those with between 1GB and 10GB will be levied $7.60, and any players with more than 10GB will face a levy of $19.
The levies are paid to the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC), which distributes the money to authors, performers, and producers of music in Canada.
Current levies on recording media will remain the same until the end of 2004, the board said, at 22 cents on audio tapes longer than 40 minutes, 15 cents on CD-Rs and CD-RWs, and 58 cents on CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio, and MiniDisks.
A request from the CPCC for levies on blank DVDs, removable memory cards, and removable micro hard drives was turned down because the board did not believe they are ordinarily used for copying music, it said.
Heading to Court?
"The board has expressed an opinion and we don't happen to agree with that opinion. We disagree that the source of the copy is irrelevant," says David Baskin, a spokesperson for the CPCC. The matter may have to be settled by litigation, Baskin says.
The CRIA is also disappointed by the level of the levies, Pfohl says. "It will come nowhere near to compensating us. Since 1999, Canadian music producers have lost [$323 million in U.S. dollars] in CD sales, largely due to illegal copying. We've received roughly [$1.9 million in U.S. dollars] from the CPCC. Basically, the levies will come nowhere near to covering the damage suffered," he says.
The CPCC applied for much higher levies on a broader range of products, Baskin says. The levies aim to raise money for artists, "and [$19] is not an amount that will address the issue," he says.
The Copyright Board has aimed to protect the consumer, "but we don't think the balance is as fair as it could be," he says.
