Archived - Krol, Mitch

Hi,

I am a Canadian composer / musician with over 20 years experience in film, TV and a musician in several touring bands over the years, as well as being a member of SOCAN who receives royalties for my work(s).

I believe the Government must enact Copyright laws that ensure copyright is properly protected and fairly compensated. Protection of copyright is important for artists and businesses, and benefits all Canadians and the Canadian economy.

However, I am against using outdated business models or any DRM / USA style methods.

I feel in order to take our place as leaders in an ever evolving digital age, we should embrace newer more technically updated models to help protect creators rights while still respecting the privacy and rights of those who enjoy what we create. Perhaps a levy on ISPs much like that on blank media.

In this ever evolving and growing digital age I think it's the wrong avenue to take to essentially make criminals out of a large chunk of the population, where to actually try to police such a thing would be a huge invasion of privacy for all us Canadians! in fact, I think it would be illegal according to the Privacy Commission.

I have felt that SOCAN has always been "on my side" all these years, but I see groups like the Canadian Recording Industry Association and the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association et al to only be after protecting big business and their own pockets. I have often wondered where my "cut" was. After all, back when file sharing started my web designer told me to search my band and I was shocked to have not only found all of my albums online, but even several live shows and videos as well!

I embraced the Internet that day seeing the potential for an artist to disseminate and grow. I saw no negative effect of file sharing on my musical income, and rather think it may have enhanced it.

Please, we need protection for our content creators but with a modern approach with a neutral Internet!

cheers,

Mitch Krol