Canada No Pirate Nation: Global Leader In Music Download Sales

An anonymous reader writes "The IFPI, the global recording industry association, recently released its Recording Industry in Numbers 2012, which provides detailed sales data from countries around the world. While CRIA talks about 'rebuilding the marketplace,' the industry's own data indicates that Canada already stands among the global leaders in digital music sales. Michael Geist digs into the data and finds that Canadians purchased more single track downloads than Germany or Japan, and more than double the sales in France, despite the fact that each of those countries has far larger populations. In fact, Canadian sales were larger than all the sales from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden combined. Not only is the Canadian digital market far larger than virtually every European market, it continues to grow faster than the U.S. digital music market as well. In fact, the Canadian digital music market has grown faster than the U.S. market for the past six consecutive years."

Re:I could be wrong...

[MonsterTrimble]

There are Canadian Content rules which specify material which is deemed Canadian Content (% written/produced/performed by a Canadian) must receive x amount of airtime. It's been complained about for a number of years by people in the music industry, however it has given airtime to great artists like The Tragically Hip, Paul Brandt, I Mother Earth, and George Canyon so it's both good and bad.

Personally, I find CBC (especially CBC Music) to be a goldmine for music - free streaming of a pile of concerts, podcasts, you name it.

Re:Title?

[anyGould]

Piracy = increased sales? Canadians are one of the few who are protected under the law and can download as much pirated product as they like. The studies suggest that piracy leads to more purchases of the same type of material (music, movies, etc) so it can be true that we both pirate and purchase at the same time.

Bear in mind we're "protected" because we pay a levy on blank media - effectively it's impossible for a Canadian to "illegally download" material because we've already paid for it when we bought the hard drive.

IP enforcement in Canada chases after the seeders, because that part is still illegal.

I'd account a fair bit of the sales increase to people ditching cable - between iTunes and Netflix, I can watch every show I want for substantially less than what cable would be. (I still get my internet and phone through the cable company because I loathe Telus with a fiery passion, so the cable company is content.)

Re:So you mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Vic Toews has his way all of this will change very soon.

Re:Title?

[dubbreak]

IP enforcement in Canada chases after the seeders, because that part is still illegal.

Citation needed. Have you heard about any uploading cases in the last 5-8 years?

Seems like the prolific US propaganda and lobbying on the subject has skewed your view (as with many Canadians). A precedent was set saying it was not illegal (BMG Canada Inc. v. JohnDoe [wikipedia.org]). The appeal (which passed) stated that the legality still needs to be decided in court. To my knowledge it hasn't been tested yet (most likely due to the current legislation giving it a chance to go through as legal).

The Royal Canadian Mounted police's policy is: "Piracy for personal use is no longer targeted".

We covered this quickly in a law class (back in 2007) and the current state then was "not illegal". In order to make it illegal would require a risky court case (which I haven't heard of to date) or legislation (which the RIAA keeps trying to push in Canada and the Conservatives address periodically).

In conclusion: you have no excuse to be a leecher. Start seeding like the rest of us ;).

Re:Title?

[JMJimmy]

Well, there's this:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6456/125/ [michaelgeist.ca]

But did you also know that the Conservative Party of Canada lobbied the US government to bump up Canada's position on that list?

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1048993--leaks-show-u-s-swayed-canada-on-copyright-bill [thestar.com]

The cables, from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, even have a policy director for then industry minister Tony Clement suggesting it might help U.S. demands for a tough copyright law if Canada were placed among the worst offenders on an international piracy watch list. Days later, the U.S. placed Canada alongside China and Russia on the list.

Facts are fun!