Sur les 1.5 milliard de copie de musique qui sont effectuées chaque années, 70% de ces copies sont désormais effectuées sur des enregistreurs audionumériques qui ne sont génèrent présentement pas de redevances pour la copie privée. Ā cause d'une loi désuète, les ayants droits de la musique ne reçoivent donc pas un sous pour cette quantité phénoménales de copies qui ne sont pas couvertes par le régime de la copie privée.

Le régime de la copie privée, c'est équitable et ça fonctionne : Depuis la création du régime, c'est pratiquement 160 millions de dollars qui ont été distribués à près de 100 000 ayants droits pour cette utilisation qui est faite de leur musique.

On ne sait pas de quoi l'avenir sera fait c'est pourquoi il est important de mettre en place une loi sur le droit d'auteur qui soit technologiquement neutre, qui assurera aux ayants droit des revenus quelque soit la plateforme d'accès utilisée par le consommateur.

Il faut trouver un équilibre entre la technologie disponible et la protection des ayants droit, afin de nous assurer que notre industrie ait les moyens de continuer à fonctionner et à innover en musique.

I believe that there is a big difference between commercial level activities and taking a song from a CD and putting it on an iPod or a mix disc for the car. I pay my levy on CD's with the expectation that I can make a backup for my own personal use. Let me make it clear though, they tighten the laws, I expect there to be a repeal of all levies/taxes/tax breaks and other subsidies from all copyright based industries that benefit from any legislation that puts their interests ahead of common citizen. If you want to play nicely with everyone else, that's fine. If you want this to be adversarial then you do not get to benefit from the public purse.

Copyright should not be forever, it should benefit the creator, but not forever. Copyright terms should no longer be extended to ensure that the body of work of human culture that is freely available can expand without every aspect of our shared heritage being commercialized and subject to restrictions for the sake of profit. Education and shared resources like libraries need to be clearly exempted from any draconian restrictions in order to preserve a bastion for the public who can't afford to pay a toll for every note, every word or every moving image every second of their lives.

At the same time, arbitrary regional blocks need to be addressed. Market pressures are already making the system bend with time shifting and synchronized release dates for 'product' (i.e. movies/tv/music). The market should not be able to push back and make these options illegal to protect their 'market'.

Net neutrality is another aspect of modern life that needs to be preserved. The internet has opened my eyes (and wallet) to content from around the planet that I deem to be of value to me. We need to ensure that if we can legitimately obtain legal content from another country over the internet that no commercial entity here can say 'no' because it might affect their bottom line.

Safeguards need to be in place to ensure that the people providing the infrastructure and provide content over that same infrastructure do not unfairly disadvantage or shut out their competition.

Overall there does need to be balance and I cannot for a moment believe that industry lobbyists, board room executives and lawyers will have anyone other than their own interests and bottom lines at heart. They have failed to adapt. They have failed to understand that convenience is the order of the day and that people want flexibility, they want choice and they want it when their schedule permits it.

In the end we as consumers, as citizens, as taxpayers should get 'fair use' provisions and the weight of the law brought against those involved in large scale, for-profit commercial infringement. Go after the people importing illegal copies from other countries and leave the iPods alone.

Finally, Cultural institutions, education and even parody/satire need to be protected in whatever bill is proposed and as much as the companies have a point that we don't have the right to buy content once and own it forever, neither to they.

Speaking strictly to the audio side of the debate, before the days of digital, this was a simple matter. Piracy was always possible if you had the money to afford the proper equipment. Not many people did, and piracy was easy to detect and not a real problem. When consumers were given the ability to record through technological advances and affordable equipment, such as cassette tape, we easily added a blank media levy. Now that we are in the digital age problems such as copy degradation are no longer an issue and we can copy to our hearts content without loss of quality.

We have let pandora out of the box, we will never be able to put her back. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Soon we will have DTV and the debate continues.

In my view what's really at issue here are two things. The authors ability to produce content, and the publisher/record companies ability to exploit it. This is dominoes. If I, a musician, spend large amounts of money to produce and promote content I should be compensated by the people who have decided to keep a copy of that content. If the unchecked downloading of content continues and the very first copy of something I have sold starts circulating for free, I will never recoup my costs let alone make a profit. This in turn causes me to never produce new content due to the fact that I have already used up all my money the first time. To the people who say that most of the artists revenue comes from live performance, I don't think they know what they are talking about. To quote an unknown author, "It takes about ten years to become an overnight sensation". The Rolling Stones may make lots of money by selling $150 tickets, but what about the not yet knowns playing in bars. If they are lucky they might make $100 per man per night. Sounds OK untill you factor in time spent learning how to play an instrument, rehersing, leg work to hustle gigs, loading and unloading equipment, setting up, tearing down, driving to and from, etc.. Sounds to me like less than $0.50 per hour for many years until you "make it". Musicians must really love what they do when less than 10% of them ever amount to anything. They deserve to be compensated for any content floating around in the ether.

Record companies and publishers make thier money by having authors assign thier copyrights to them for the value added task of promoting and distributing thier work. Artists can do this themselves but most don't have the knowledge, time, or money to do it themselves so they rely on the big boys. They should be compensated.

Getting down to what should be compensible and what shouldn't. If I own a copy of somthing because I paid for it, I should be able to make as many copies as I like in whatever form of media I choose without having to pay again. after all I can only listen to one song at a time in one place at a time no matter how many places I have it stored. Digital is great untill it breaks down. I have old vinyl (and clay) records that can still be played again even though my record player is broken. If my iPod breaks, I will completly loose my ones and zeros. If I lend a copy to someone should they have to pay for it? If they make a copy or never give it back, yes. Who do they pay? If I gave my only copy (CD) and didn't get it back they should pay me dirctly. If they make a copy, then return the CD they should pay someone but how would you ever be able to control that, or even prove that they didn't already have a paid copy and lost it.

I agree that CIPO needs to modify the copyright act to deal with the fact that file sharing is not going to go away. We need to be carefull though that we don't create undue hardship for consumers while trying to protect those that already have millions of dollars. If a blank media levy worked for cassette tapes and blank CDs, why wouldn't it work for a blank hard disk, thumb drive, new iPod, etc.. An idea has already been put forth to place a levy on internet access itself. This might be workable only if nobody minds that the record companies will probobly get paid for data transfer that they have no rightful claim to. Levies don't address something very important. If my song get downloaded, I will never see a dime of any levy as I am independant and not a member of Socan.

As an educator we are given a small budget every year to purchase resources-- usually $500 for our department. When I go to purchase dvds or videos to enhance our classes, it asks whether the dvd will be shown in Canadian classrooms or in an American one. If it's in the US, the cost of the dvd is $30 or so. If the dvd is going to be shown in a Canadian classroom the cost is $30 plus $125+ to get the rights to show the video in the classroom. So instead of being able to purchase numerous resources for students and teachers, we can usually only buy two or three dvds (tax and shipping add up too). But if we taught in the US, there's no need to purchase the rights. How is that fair? My hope is that the new law really looks to promote learning and supports education.

As a member of a small organization specializing in electro magnetic compatibility, copyright affects the way we publish our research and development papers. Traditionally we and our peers published research papers with the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) however that approach is no longer satisfactory. IEEE retains the copyright to all submissions, and its distribution is highly exclusive even among its own members.

We now publish independently, and are waiting patiently for IEEE to "open up" or be replaced.

I would like to see Canadian copyright law formulated in a way that would discourage copyright aggregation. I see no reason why any organization should require exclusive rights to a work.

As an individual, I am shocked and appalled that the US DOJ considers $2e6 to an acceptable settlement for online sharing of music. Law is intended to create justice, if the law considers this just, then it has failed, and I will no longer respect or be bound by it.

I would like to see Canadian copyright law formulated in a way that would allow corporations and individuals settle their differences in a fair and equitable manner. An individual should not have their life destroyed due to a copyright violation

Bonjour, je suis auteur-compositeur-interprète et en tant qu'artiste, je trouve qu'il est plus que temps que le gouvernement intervienne dans le débat sur le droit des créateurs à leurs redevances. Il faut absolument mettre en place des mesures pour que les redevances soient versées aux créateurs de façon équitable en tenant compte des nouvelles réalités du marché (piratage, téléchargement, partage de fichiers, etc.).
Il faut s'adapter au numérique et non reculer en privant les créateurs de leurs redevances. Les fournisseurs d'accès internet doivent s'impliquer et être des joueurs de premier plan pour compenser l'utilisation illégale d'oeuvres musicales.

"Women Fined $1.9million For Downloading 24 Songs. (that cost $0.99)" Do we want this to happen in Canada?

We Canadians do not want to pay fines to companies that are 10000 times the original cost of the original goods. That is exactly what is happening in the US. Lawyers are deciding the fines, not the government. Respecting creators for their work should be in the law, but there are also the aspects of punishment. Punishment shouldn't happen in the courts and SHOULD NOT be decided by corporate lawyers. That is both a drain on the legal system and the only good that comes out of that is corporations can hire a team of lawyers to sue people. A punishment cap of 5x-100x (reasonable limit) should be place on goods that have copyright attached to them. The fines should be decided BY THE GOVERNMENT AND NOT THE CORPORATIONS.

People go on the internet since it is a source of resource, but you can break copyright laws just by being on the internet. That is not right. Making a strict system like the US is just non-sense, we might as well ban the internet. If we can embrace this concept, then it is not hard to come up with a system that is like speeding tickets. If we find people break copyright law, the person gets fined, the creator gets a portion of the penalty, and everyone will be on their way. This would be an effective solution to the current internet age and it can be a solution into the future where data will be exchanged even faster.

Goods that are brought by the consumer should not have any condition on it that allows corporations to charge per-usage fees. Unless the material REQUIRES the usage of corporation resources, there is absolutely NO REASON for the corporation to charge the usage of such material once again. There should be a distinction between distribution and usage. If corporations want to charge lifetime usage on the goods, they can do so when they set the price. After that, they lost the opportunity!!! If a person brought goods, they should be able to do anything to it (alter it to another format, sell it, whatever) and use it anytime other than "copying AND distributing" it. THE LAW SHOULD NOT ENTER MY HOME AND I SHOULD NOT BE PENALIZED FOR USING THINGS THAT I OWNED.

Finally, creators should be rewarded for their efforts, but if creators are not careful and their works leaks into the public domain via some vehicle, then the creator should sue the vehicle (i.e. the person who leaks it) and not the public (some random citizen) who knows after the fact. Creators can do many things to safeguard their work, we can't have a system where the creators leak their work and then ask for payment after their work is in the public domain. This is how the 1.9million reward (above) happened, and IT SHOULD NOT HAPPEN IN THIS COUNTRY. At most, the creator can collect a "reasonable fine" from people who are caught with the material through illegal means, BUT THAT IS IT. NO 1.9million, NO CORPORATE LAWYERS TO DECIDE THE FINES.

Law kills creativity. Having no law would provide the most creativity and innovation to Canada, but if we do need a law, then we shall have a legal system that recognizes copyright but also the need to foster creativity. Having a fine-similar system as a penalty for copyright breach would provide a balance of power to consumers and copyright holders. Lowering the copyright length of certain types of material will also foster more creativity in this fast-moving digital age as many have already requested.

there needs to be consumer protection for both format shifting and preservation/sharing of rare materials.

regarding format shifting: i believe it has been covered very well already: consumers, when buying a media product, don't consider themselves to be buying a license to use that product in a particular format or on a particular device. they are buying the content. they should be able to view/play this content in any form they like, transfer it to any media they like, and make as many private copies as they like.

regarding preservation of rare material: as formats change and become obsolete, a number of valuable works -- albums, tv shows, movies, etc. -- become all but unattainable to the general public. if the copyright owners don't choose to publish these works in new formats, there is real risk of them becoming completely lost. fans -- often the only source for copies of these rare works -- should have the right to preserve these works in more modern formats and, providing they are not commercially available and no profit/money is sought, distribute them. for this reason, i think there needs to be specific provisions for this type of preservation/archival work (even at the amateur/consumer level) OR there needs to be much shorter timeframes in which copyright holders have the ability to commercialize their works before it enters the public domain. e.g. a work that hasn't been available commercially for 10 years would become public domain.

The very fact Canada is even having a discussion around changing our copyright laws to more closely match the USA sickens me. Almost the entire rest of the world is FAR more liberal with copyright laws than Canada is right now, and we are discussing making them even more stringent? Shame on our government for even considering it.

If citizens had even 1/10 the amount of pull business does here we may have a shot at doing the right thing and actually RELAXING our copyright laws to match the world as a whole, but instead due to corporate money we are talking about further strangling the market so even more money can be made at the expense of innovation and real progress.

I'll say it again. Shame on you! Start relaxing our copyright laws rather than even investigating whether they should become draconian like in the USA. Canada is a beacon of common sense in North America and that is why I love it so much. We need to continue to lead the common sense path and not get sucked into the rubbish that has been going on south of the border for the past decade.

So to summarize. Do we need copyright reform? Absolutely. So lets look to our friends in Europe like Denmark or Sweden for a new model to build off of rather then take a giant leap backward.

I am in the midst of reading this very engaging & enligntening book entitled, 'Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err is Human'' by Micheal Kaplan (a filmmaker situated outside of Edinburgh, Scotland) and his mother, Ellen Kaplan, (a mathematician living near Boston, U.S.A. )

This delightful & scholastic 'mother-son' tome attempts to bridge many abrasive inconsistencies apparent in the digital 'economy' today, especially those between 'content providers' & 'consumers'. I wholeheartedly recommend it as a 'read' to those serious about the ramifications of the evolution of this pervasive technology of the 'internet' on our species.

Included in this cross-disciplinary work of neuro-lingusistics, visual perception, pharmacology, current brain science and hilarious anecdote are striking affirmations about our fundamental human NEED for 'social cohesion'. This stands as a direct attack on the 'US' versus 'THEM' mindset that seems so prelavent within this copyright forum.

Please, as this forum 'winds up', and we move on with our respective lives as either 'content providers' and/or 'consumers' (-regardless of any 'legal' recommendations-) please REMEMBER we're all in this 'together' and as such, it behooves us ALL to 'try to get along'.

Consider that without 'social cohesion' there is no 'culture', and, without 'culture' there is no 'identity', and, without 'identity' there is really little to no 'purpose' … Everything would otherwise become fractious, self-preserving & volatile as we individually 'hunker down' to protect what little we do have in the face of 'overwhelming uncertainty'. All should consider this solitary & isolating 'outcome' if we STRIDENTLY adher to our respective 'positions' of 'US versus THEM'.

Compromise is required.

As the Kaplans suggest, we need to use 'radical' but effective 'social tools' like 'CRM' aka 'cockpit resource management' to navigate to mutually 'safe territory'. Meaning, we must separate out and share tasks in ways that ensure that at least TWO MINDS will always be available in situations where ONE could err fatally …

Food for thought.

'Bozo Sapiens' - a literary 'tour de force' and remarkable cross-generational collarboration of combined synthesis & analysis - available via 'bloomsburypress.com' and/or get it from your library.

Regarding music, I agree with the comment that there has been an increase in live performances by artists. In my small town I have noticed a large increase in the number of live performances by local and out of town musicians whereas ten years ago most clubs were playing recorded music by international performers. I don't know if this is due to the internet or whether peoples tastes have changed. Either way, it is good to see the local musicians getting work and to hear the talent. My advice is to not fiddle with something that is not broken.

As both a user of copyrighted materials and a partial owner of copyrighted materials of my creation, I am aware that ideas are valuable. This likely applies in audio, video and print media. It used to be that print was getting seriously hammered by copyright violation. Now, people don't even want the words on paper; books and especially newspapers are in serious trouble with electronic sharing of information. But, it is not that people are copying and sharing traditional news; the idea of news has altered to fit the new medium. If the music industry believes they can resist technology, they are mistaken. In fact, they are aware that the technology for the creation, recording and distribution of music has radically altered. Some artists are jumping ship from the studios and labels to do on-line what used to require massive stores (Sam the Record Man is gone, long gone).
Similarly, and this is an extreme case, are you really going to sue every kid who sings "Happy Birthday" to a friend? Certain things will be appropriated to the common. It's normal. Stop crying… Here have a "kleenex".

Nowadays, musicians are making their money from performance. It's likely for the best as this helps restore their status as performers. And this phenomenon is happening to small independent bands and to monsters escaping the music machine. Madonna comes to mind in the last category.

Recommendation: Recognize that restrictive legislation will not be enforceable, that technology is in the process of making traditional music sales archaic and unnecessary, and that creators of ideas should harness new technologies to help them create more ideas.

Therefore: create funds to support Canadian artists and creators as well as supporting research into new platforms for the diffusion of artistic material. Since that public support would be in place, the public's right to it will not be an issue.

Perhaps what really needs to be reformed is contract law, not copyright law.

Would we have standard video formats like DVD and Blu-ray locked down with DRM, if consumers had any real negotiating power vis-a-vis the large companies that distribute content? Would artists be paid cents on the dollar for their work, if they had real negotiating power with the same companies?

(There is plenty of precedent for solutions, e.g., in consumer protection law, or even in collective bargaining for employment contracts.)

But if we are to reform copyright law first, then we should at least make sure that whatever rights the law grants to consumers, contracts and digital locks cannot take away - exactly the opposite of what was done in Bill C-61.

I am an IT professional working in Toronto. I have worked in Europe and Asia in my life, and owned mobile phones in all of the above.

There are no other countries, even ones with oppressive regimes, that force their population to pay for a new phone when they decide to switch providers. NONE!! This is a tactic that serves only to help the mobile phone companies get more money out of their clientelle.

I, personally, find it scandilous that you allow mobile phone companies to do this to us, and during an economic crisis like this, you are allowing for some very hard done by people to be taken advantage of.

Mr Nanos,

While I know that these forums already have many messages, there are other articles you should include in your analysis. The Georgia Straight has been running a series of articles. I'm not endorsing these article, given as an independent software author I strongly disagree with the views from the major label recording industry as well as the entertainment software lobby who seek to put people like me out of business (as well as their frontal attacks on property and other rights). I also disagree with the government imposition of business models, as promoted by lawyer Marian Hebb.

I'm simply believe that these articles, and the comments to them, should be considered.

Darrell Evans: Challenging the B.C. government's abuse of Crown copyright
http://www.straight.com/article-249911/darrell-evans-challenging-bc-governments-abuse-crown-copyright

Russell McOrmond: Canadian law should be updated to protect us from digital locks
http://www.straight.com/article-249403/russell-mcormond-canadian-law-should-be-updated-protect-us-digital-locks

Graham Henderson: Canada needs copyright rules that foster digital music market
http://www.straight.com/article-249203/graham-henderson-canada-needs-copyright-rules-foster-digital-music-market

Ferne Downey: Performers seek made-in-Canada consensus solution to copyright
http://www.straight.com/article-249171/ferne-downey-performers-seek-madeincanada-consensus-solution-copyright

Danielle Parr: Canada's video game industry needs copyright law that protects digital locks
http://www.straight.com/article-248821/danielle-parr-canadas-video-game-industry-needs-copyright-law-protects-digital-locks

Bill Henderson: Voluntary music file-sharing fee would benefit songwriters and fans
http://www.straight.com/article-248110/bill-henderson-voluntary-music-filesharing-fee-would-benefit-songwriters-and-fans

Geof Glass: How Canada's new copyright law will affect you
http://www.straight.com/article-247860/geof-glass-how-canadas-new-copyright-law-will-affect-you

Elizabeth May and Griffin Carpenter: Canada needs principled approach to copyright
http://www.straight.com/article-247597/elizabeth-may-and-griffin-carpenter-canada-needs-principled-approached-copyright

Marian Hebb: Collective licensing would help Canadian writers get paid on-line
http://www.straight.com/article-241403/marian-hebb-collective-licensing-would-help-writers-get-paid-online

Bonjour je me nomme Julien Fortin, je suis co-propriétaire du jeune entreprise d'éditions musicale.

Je crois que le droits d'auteur permettant la protection des oeuvres de nos artistes est la colonne vertébrale du patrimoine culturel.

Comment voulez-vous qu'un artiste vive de son art s'il n'est pas rémunéré a juste titre pour son travail et surtout comment peut-on concevoir qu'il puisse continuer a créer s'il doit travailler 40 hrs par semaine pour arriver a se loger et se nourrir.

Le canada accuse un retard considérable a l'égard de d'autres pays dans le monde en ce qui en trait aux lois sur le droits d'auteurs.

A quand la protection des oeuvres au niveau de la téléphonie cellulaire qui se serve de la musique pour vendre leur produit et qui sont devenu par le fait même une industrie étant capable de transporter et de diffuser de la musique. Aucune lois présentement ne réglementent cette aspect.

A quand une loi qui reconnaîtra que le ipod est un outil de diffusion de la musique. Et qu'il est primordial que les ayants droits soit protéger.

A l'exemple de la copies privé plusieurs mesures dans ce sens peuvent être voté afin de remettre ne serais-ce qu'en partie aux artistes ce qui leur ai dû, ce qui compose une partie de leur salaire, ce qui leur permet de continuer a créer.

Il faut que le gouvernement canadien nous aide à trouver et à mettre en place des outils efficaces pour contrôler l'exploitation des droits, pour les faire respecter; les fournisseurs d'accès Internet devront faire partie de la solution comme tous les autres maillons de la chaîne.

Il faut mettre en place aussi des programmes de sensibilisation et d'éducation du public. Afin de bien les informé sur les enjeux de la protection du droits d'auteurs,sur les impacts sur les ayant droits et sur l'industrie de la musique et du divertissement en générale.

Il faut trouver un équilibre entre la technologie disponible et la protection des ayants droit, afin de nous assurer que l' industrie de la musique et surtout que les créateurs ait les moyens de continuer à fonctionner et à innover.

Merci !

Julien Fortin

Our copyright laws seem to be close to being fair to all concerned now. I believe that fair use should be one of the things that should be guaranteed in any modernization.
Some countries have been trying to unfairly limit quotations from copyrighted materials to ridiculous limits such as 5 words. I believe that this type of thing is an effort to limit education, stifle debate about controversial subjects and stop satire and parodies that cause people to think about what they have read and heard.
Digital rights management must be allowed to be bypassed also, because there have been too many cases where companies have either used DRM to force people to buy a certain brand or type of device to use content that they have bought, or the company has stopped using the DRM for one reason or another and people can no longer access the content that they have bought and paid for. There have also been cases(the Sony rootkit for one) where the DRM itself has caused damage to the device used to view or otherwise use the content paid for. DRM has also been damaging to educational institutions trying to use content in courses. This all seems to indicate that there may be no case for DRM to be used at all and maybe copyright law should bar its use, in order to allow fair dealing. The only possible use for it would be to prevent copyright infringement and that would have to be carefully specified as different from fair use, which must be allowed. Fair use should include the ability for people to make backups of whatever type of content they have paid for.
Another disturbing trend is the continuing effort to extend copyright beyond the lifetime of the creator of the works. Perhaps in cases where the creator dies early, this would be unfair to the family of the author of the works, but in most cases it enforces unfair limitations on the derivation of other works from the original by other people, thus stifling creativity. This is most concerning in the field of music, because, in the western world at least, there are only 88 notes used and sooner than anyone thinks, all variations of these notes will be used. Therefore the field of music will die.
Another concern of mine is the possibility that laws will limit new forms of business models and possible new creative forms of expression, so there has to be some form of flexibility in the law to allow for unforeseen cases. This will be difficult to allow for, but by not limiting technology by ironclad laws, the possibilities will still exist.
Crown copyright should be abolished and any works, laws, studies and other information brought forth by government should automatically be put into the public domain because the public has commissioned it. Because the public has paid for it, the public should have all the rights to such works.
ISPs should not be held responsible for information available through the internet or any technology that may replace the internet. Also any takedown notices given to content suppliers must be checked to make sure that the author of the takedown notice is the actual owner of the content. In some countries this has not been done, with laughable results. Some countries also are trying to use "3 strikes" laws to disconnect customers on mere suspicion of copyright infringement. I myself use torrents to make linux ISOs available to other people (which is entirely legal in any country) and don't want to be disconnected because I am suspected of copyright infringement because of the technology I am using.
Also, libraries should be allowed to loan books digitally. There is a possibility of a real case for the use of a form of DRM here that only allows the book to be used for the usual 14 day loan of a library book, possibly deleting it after 14 days.
Educational institutes using distance learning need to have learning materials available digitally also, so provisions should be used to allow for this.
Many creator groups have asked for rights management information protection. This is not an area I have much information on, but it seems
reasonable to me that this should also be considered.
Unreasonable statutory damages provisions for non-commercial infringement is an area that should be looked at also. I have no problem with large statutory damages for cases of commercial infringement, but non-commercial infringement should be limited to something reasonable that the content owner has a chance of collecting, unlike some of the damage awards I have seen in other countries, which seem to be unreasonable and unnecessarily punitive.