Canada No Pirate Nation: Global Leader In Music Download Sales 179
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."
Global leader in music sales... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Global leader in music sales... (Score:4, Interesting)
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considering how many laws the write for us, I think its more than money, they seek ultimate power.
What is the difference?
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once you have the power to create law you no longer have to by congress to do it for you and you save money that you can then use for swimming in, prosecuting small childern and old ladies, butt rape the country and make even more money
Re:Global leader in music sales... (Score:4, Funny)
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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"Change... do you have some change?"
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They're actually worse than homeless bums. They're more like predatory gypsy contractors. Granny had one come to her house to say he'd been working up the street and noticed a little problem with her roof. By the time they were done she'd been bilked out of almost $3000.00. Of course, you should have see the look on their faces when I walked up to them (i'm 6'3" and 250 pounds of just rolled down off the mountain ugly.) and told them that Granny had asked me to talk to them about when they were going to
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+5 Sad but true
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@ $750 minimum to legally get a copy of the report. . .
It's Our Penance (Score:5, Funny)
As a Canadian, I think I can speak for the country when I say that the reason we're a global leader in music download sales is that we feel so damn guilty for pirating all that stuff that we make amends by buying it.
Plus, how else can we push Justin Bieber to the top? Don't tell me non-canucks actually purchase his stuff, too?
We're just so damn polite. Sorry for the cuss words.
cheers,
cheers,
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Hey...
FUCK YOU!
Nah I'm sorry man...it just slipped out. I just got back from Toronto. Oh man...Toronto !@*(!.
Title? (Score:2)
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Where in TFA is it suggested that this has anything to do with a lack of piracy?
Good point. Maybe we just need lots of indoor entertainment for, like, 8 months of the year or something like that...more than we could handily pirate :)
Arrr...eh!
Re:Title? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Title? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know people who pirated movies or video games the first time that were there on opening day to buy the sequels. People will support what they know is awesome because they want it to continue and they know that it will not continue if the makers can't feed their families and pay mortgages.
They have rather less interest in keeping rich executives rich. Or for that matter, even in keeping rich artists rich.
Re:Title? (Score:4, Informative)
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:Title? (Score:5, Informative)
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
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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?
Only anecdotal - my parent's got a nastygram from their ISP listing the various movies that a houseguest was torrenting. Nothing came of it (other than the houseguest losing internet privileges), but it tells me that someone is still paying attention.
Now, I don't personally worry too much (if only because I tend to torrent obscure things that no-one cares about, and as you mention, seeding is polite and leeching sucks), but it's worth taking note of.
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Was the nasty gram from RIAA? I got one of those while working as a sys-admin in Germany. A quick "we are not in the US so suck it" usually is sufficient to deal with those.
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As I understood it, it was from the ISP directly. It listed the files it had detected being shared, along with a bunch of scary text about how she could be liable for this, that, and the other. I never saw the full letter (I did most of the explaining over the phone).
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Those are meaningless threats. They are never followed through on the the better ISPs won't even bother forwarding them to the customer. Basically it's more propaganda.
Perhaps, but it will still do a good job of scaring people who don't know better. Remember, there's a reason so many people settle out of court on these things.
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That would be because the levy on media is for music only. Movies, games, software, books etc.. do not fall under the blank media levy, and are still very much illegal.
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The original decision made it clear that downloading and seeding does not constitute authorization of infringement. That's not to say it protects those who engage in infringement and then distribute. ie: If I place a song I own in a shared folder that's not infringement, but if I do the same thing with something I do not own then the law doesn't protect me. The kicker here (and why it's not often pursued) is that the burden of proof is on the plaintiff to show how the material was obtained. If I downlo
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You are correct you do not have to provide proof of ownership or even have ownership, it's all about the intent to distribute / authorization of infringement.
The ads/restrictions on what operations I can perform/etc are the reason I pirate. I still have a legally purchased DVD collection of over 1200 titles but in each case is a burned copy with that crap stripped out and I previewed just about everyone (either via rental or pirating) prior to purchase.
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No. Do not promulgate this.
Downloading is 'legal' because there is no law against it. That levy protects you from nothing, as the bills the current Government have shown. If that law gets passed, your levy defense won't hold water.
I've said this in response to every comment like yours for years for exactly this reason. Do not complacently think that you get anything out of the levy other than an empty pocket. Most of that money you pay doesn't even go to the artists that distribute it. In fact, last I heard
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Well, more strictly it's legal because the government and courts can't quite get on the same page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_in_Canada
has the bloody history, and while the '04-05 ruling isn't valid, it's still a pretty good indicator that Canadian courts don't (currently) consider torrenting illegal in and of itself. (As always, I'm not a lawyer, you probably aren't either, etc, etc, etc.)
I'll agree the levy didn't do much for musicians, but I never expected it to. (My understanding was that
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Canadians face similar limitations when it comes to sharing music that other nations do. For example, it is illegal to share music covered by copywrite. While I believe the receiver is not considered to be at fault, the sender is. Those using bittorrent are just as guilty in Canada as they are in the US.
Also, the recent reports of Canada being a haven for pirated media are BS. It's a political game where the recording industries are trying to make it look like Canada needs tougher laws. Last I heard
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Canadians face similar limitations when it comes to sharing music that other nations do. For example, it is illegal to share music covered by copywrite. While I believe the receiver is not considered to be at fault, the sender is. Those using bittorrent are just as guilty in Canada as they are in the US.
First, it's copyright. Second no they don't. In the above linked court decision the judge equated placing copyrighted music in a publicly shared folder (specifically citing P2P) is the equivalent of a library placing a photocopier in a room full of copyrighted books. The library is not authorizing you to copy a book, if you do that's on you. However, if you do copy something digital from a P2P network (or any other source) you have no way of knowing if the source is a legal one or not so you cannot be h
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100% correct sir.
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It's almost like the question of legalizing marijuana. If left illegal it becomes a gateway drug and connects people with those who distribute drugs that are actually harmful. If legal, most people would never connect with the dealers of harmful drugs. Same with piracy - provide easy access to legit media and most will never visit the pirate bay.
While there are several errors in your post, this one hits the mark. This makes sense, from personal observation.
I am neither here nor there regarding legalizing pot: I'll let others debate that point to death. The fact that media companies are cutting their own throats by driving customers to the pirate sites in droves due to the severe dearth of legal, flexible, timely, cost effective and user-friendly alternatives is something I see quite regularly. Non-techie family, friends and colleagues are often
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Bill C-11 (formerly C-32) strikes a pretty good balance with the exception of the digital lock rules. There will be a constitutional challenge to the digital lock section of the bill and it will most likely be struck down. The rest of the bill is actually fairly well balanced and clarifies exceptions for satire/education/etc which were previously in a legal grey area but generally accepted to be fair use.
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Piracy = increased sales?
A couple of years ago (I wish I could find the link) a book publisher wanted to know how much piracy was costing him, so he commissioned a study to find out. Since books don't hit the internet for a few weeks after it goes on sale, the researchers watched sales figures from the time of release to a point after the book hit the net. The researchers and publisher were astounded that rather than a drop in sales, there was actually a sales spike! Having it on the net, they hypothesized,
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(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,
. . .
onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording.
[25]Thus, downloading a song for personal use does not amount to infringement. See Copyright Board's, Private Copying 2003-2004 Decision, 12 December, 2003, at page 20.
ie: As a private citizen you can download whatever you want and it is not infringement.
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. Before it constitutes distribution, there must be a positive act by the owner of the shared directory, such as sending out the copies or advertising that they are available for copying.
ie: You can share what you want so long as you don't advertise it
[29]Lastly, while the plaintiffs allege that there was secondary infringement contrary to subsection 27(2) [snip] Such evidence of knowledge is a necessary condition for establishing infringement under that section.
ie: the burden of proof lies with the plaintiff to show that the individual knowingly authorized infringement.
It is an infringement of copyright for any person to
(a) sell or rent out,
(b) distribute to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright,
(c) by way of trade distribute, expose or offer for sale or rental, or exhibit in public,
(d) possess for the purpose of doing anything referred to in paragraphs (a) to (c),
ie: unless you're trying to profit/seriously harm the copyright holder/use the material in a public forum it does not constitute infringement.
The ruling was very clear, Canadians (and that's not to say Canadian organizations) cannot be held liable un
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Re:Title? (Score:4, Informative)
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!
Physical Media Please (Score:2)
I still by CDs and DVD-Audio discs because I want to rip the files into a lossless format. Plus I still listen to entire albums from start to finish. I guess I'm just old school at the ripe old age of 33.
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Ha, at 33 I still bought CDs too. Now I'm past that
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I buy CDs too (not the individual albums, but the Greatest Hits collection). I rarely listen to them. Buying the disc is simply my method of (1) supporting the artist, engineer, musician, etc and (2) backingup my songs in a non-erasing format.
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I still by CDs and DVD-Audio discs...
Oh, are you'se the b'y? :)
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I listen to entire albums from start to finish, too, and I haven't burned a music CD in at least a year (and that wasn't even for me, but for a friend to listen to in his car)...I'm still 1/4 of the way through the 50 CD spindle I bought back in like 2007. It's been even longer for DVD-R's.
I don't think I'm even going to bother putting an optical drive in my next PC build. Seems like there's no point anymore.
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You're only in the minority because most people don't have good enough speakers to tell the difference between am MP3 and a WAV. Especially when many of the CDs are mastered so badly.
As to listening to albums from start to finish, that is old school. Note that a lot of the older (from the analog age) music is meant to be listened to an LP side at a time, rather than the whole CD at once. Someone here once complained that "Money" didn't fit the "Dark Side of the Moon" CD, well, it isn't suposed to. There's s
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I still by CDs and DVD-Audio discs because I want to rip the files into a lossless format. Plus I still listen to entire albums from start to finish. I guess I'm just old school at the ripe old age of 33.
I buy CDs when I go to live performances (I pretty much get one of each they have for sale, if I don't have it already...and sometimes even if I do :). That's all to support artists I love, otherwise why would I be at their shows? Also, I *believe* that a larger cut of live show sales goes to the artist, less (or hopefully none?) to those damned RIAA leeches. (Can anybody verify this for me? I've never been able to find a definitive answer to this question...)
Other than that, I only buy CDs from used mu
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RIAA and facts (Score:2)
So you mean... (Score:3)
I'm freakin' shocked.
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If Vic Toews has his way all of this will change very soon.
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Lobbyist is just another word for Liar (Score:2)
"The Canadian music market is being destroyed by downloads!" (And oh by they way we're the global leader in sales.)
So they (Score:2)
Pay to download the music and they pay a surcharge on the media to burn it to.
BTW Maybe people in the rest of the world would pirate less if there were legal ways to download and pay, I don't think Amazon's mp3 store is accessible in other countries.
Epic fail (Score:3)
I predict a epic fail. Lots of discussion about morality and ethics of downloading / sharing by country, no discussion about availability in the marketplace.
A lot more chopsticks are sold in .jp and .cn than in .se or .fr. That doesn't mean the people in .jp rarely pirate chopsticks and everyone in .fr prints stolen 3-d printer copies of chopsticks or relies on gray market imported chopsticks. I'm guessing that most of the online available music appeals to .us and by extension (since their govt is just a lapdog of the us, etc etc) the music appeals to .ca. On the other hand Garth Brooks and the Dixie Chix don't sell so well in Paris.
Maybe this'll get results... (Score:3)
Well now, perhaps studies like this will help motivate the other large US music sellers (Amazon, Google) to get off their collective asses and start porting their services to Canada. Have been (not so) patiently waiting for this for, what, five years now?
I am no fan of Apple, but right now that's the only large-scale digital music purchase option available to Canada...at least they provide iTunes cards so I don't have to, you know, enter any real personal information for an iTunes account. The interface and bloatiness still sucks, though, and I'd hop on Amazon or Google in a heartbeat (well, once my current credits are used up).
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What about DirecTV?
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What about DirecTV?
?
a) DirecTV is a satellite TV provider, not anything you can actually purchase content from, just rent it. And,
b) it's apparently not available in Canada, according to their own website [directv.com].
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I hear the Canadians have hacked it whilst smoking something called BC Bub or Club or something.
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I hear the Canadians have hacked it whilst smoking something called BC Bub or Club or something.
Oh, well, possibly, I wouldn't know.
I'm too busy griping about the lack of legal alternatives to iTunes, ones with widely varied selections and the great ease-of-use factor, like Amazon or Google Music.
Puretracks is okay, with a pretty decent selection, but the convenience factor just isn't there yet, like it is (for 'mericans at least) with Amazon or Google. If Puretracks had an app that let me browse and buy on my phone...
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I dunno too much about iPhones, but can't you jailbreak one of those and/or root an Android and get what you want? If not I think there are some bittorent clients for Android at least. I'm pretty sure there is also a proxy for rooted Androids as well since there isn't legal alternatives. I normally buy the CD and go from there anyhow. It just seems like a better deal.
If you fight piracy that hard then all you will have are pirates.
*Mafioso voice, holding cigar, oak-panelled room* (Score:2)
It's not about the money anymore, it's too late for your damn sales figures. It's about respect.
You always were one of our top earners, kid; but that wasn't good enough for you. You had to go mouthing off against the MAFIAA, against the family...
Must be because of (Score:2)
Say goodbye to CD tax? (Score:3)
Since apparently the legit digital market is growing leaps and bounds, would it be a good time to suggest repealing any CD-R and SD type card taxes the CRIA managed to get passed into law? It only seems fair and makes sense to me.
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+1
Reference: http://www.cpcc.ca/en/the-cpcc/private-copying-tariff [www.cpcc.ca]
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C-11 is dead. C-32 is the new version of it and with the exception of the digital lock rules isn't that bad. The great thing is that the digital lock rules are likely to be constitutionally impermissible and the "authorization of infringement" ruling will still apply so nothing will really change.
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oops... got C-11 and C-32 backwards. My bad!
Lol - Noobs! (Score:2)
Lol - Noobs.
That's all.
Piracy = Profit (Score:2)
How does the fact that Canada is a global leader in music sales imply that they are not a "pirate nation"? Has any credible study shown that one would expect that to be the case? The studies and surveys that come to mind all indicate that those who pirate the most media also spend the most...
Source (Score:2)
Well..of course they are! After all...someone has to buy it to be able to put it on the net for everyone else to download!!
A note about the comments and summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, talking about how the Candian digital sales is growing faster (percentage-wise) than the US could also be a red herring if the Canadian market for digital sales was very low five years ago. (Example: if you start with 10,000 digital sales per year five years ago, you can get 100% growth each year and still have lower overall digital sales than a country that was selling 1,000,000 sales five years ago and had 10% growth each year.) In fact, the MichaelGeist information confirms that this is what happened - i.e. that the Canadians digital sales numbers started much lower - when he says "Canada seems likely to pass the U.S. on per capita single track downloads in about 18 months". So, the chart Michael Geist produces showing six years of faster-than-US sales growth in "single track downloads" is really a chart showing that Canada is still playing catch-up. Also, I wonder how "single track downloads" differs from "digital sales" in general.
According to the Norway sample data (http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/RIN-samplepage-2012.pdf), digital sales account for 45% of total revenue and "single track downloads" accounts for 18% of digital sales. This means in Norway that "single track downloads" accounts for only 8.1% of revenue. This also raises a red-flag for me because it makes me think that "single track downloads" was a subcategory that Geist could seize on to paint a rosy picture, even if the total picture was different.
I've also noticed that a lot of comments on the Slashdot thread seem to think we're talking about "total sales" when were talking only about one component of music sales: "digital music sales" or "single track downloads".
As much as I hate when the music industry spins numbers (for example, assuming that one act of piracy equals one lost sale to calculate the amount of money lost to piracy), we should also acknowledge that the pro-piracy crowd spins their numbers as well. I'd look at the actual numbers, but the entire report is only available if you pay.
ha (Score:2)
I'd like to know who. I literally do not no a single person that has bought a signal song electronically. At the moment I have ~20k songs in my iTunes collection and I'm a relatively light user compared to my friends. Rot in hell CRIA.
We'll (Score:2)
It has to do with all that stuff they smoke up there.
Must be mostly from iTunes (Score:2)
I was quite surprised when I learned last month that Amazon doesn't have an MP3 store for Canada.
The only ones surprised are the RIAA (Score:2)
Canada does not have the same copyright laws as the US. We have a right to preview media. We use downloads to do that instead of going to stores.
And surprise, surprise: The more media you preview, the more you're likely to buy.
But the RIAA and MPAA will keep screaming about "lost sales" until they finally die an ignoble death rather than face up to the fact that they should encourage previewing/piracy to boost sales, not scream and cry about it like spoiled children.
Moose antlers (Score:2)
They make the Wi-fi connections easier.
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Sincerely, a Canadian Parent.
Re:I could be wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
We have incredibly lax laws compared to many places; the reason that such services don't tend to work here is simple.
Negotiating the licenses and contracts costs some money
Canada has 1/10th the population of the U.S. so it often isn't worth it.
Netflix, for instance, works perfectly well in Canada but has 1/10th the library of the U.S. version.
Re:I could be wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I find CBC (especially CBC Music) to be a goldmine for music - free streaming of a pile of concerts, podcasts, you name it.
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It's been more than a few years since I've been back, so I'll assume that what you say about Canadian content is still valid. And while I agree with your comment, I'll add that there is nothing you or anyone else can do to give me the years I endured listening to Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray and Rush on the radio.
NPR on this side of the border isn't half bad. There's college stations just about everywhere that stream fairly good music (KCRW in Los Angeles, as one example), in addition to news and comment
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Err, thank god for artists that can fill an album with 40-50 minutes of music that we want to listen too.
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Interesting take on that availability: http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worse-than-the-old-boss-full-post/ [wordpress.com]
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Nearly all of my friends and family buy their music. Probably because we're not assholes.
There's no excuse not to pay for the multimedia you use these days. I can get any show/song I want on iTunes. If I didn't want to pay $3 an episode or a buck a song, I just wouldn't bloody own it.
Unless you use Linux where iTune and Netflix doesn't have a native client. Remember not everyone here likes Apple or Microsoft and some of us want a OS that works they way we want it to, and gasp would also like to be able to consume media. some of us don't want to support monopoly abusing patent trolls.
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If only the issue was so simple! Hammer, meet nail.
We, the people, demand a share in the incredible exposure and savings our technology has brought to music. I don't see the entertainment cartels thanking us, and perhaps more to the point paying us, for the invention of the camera, microphone, speaker, electric guitar, synthesizer, radio, TV, vinyl record, mylar tape, VCR, CD, DVD, huge hard drives, fast consumer grade computers, sophisticated music composition, scoring, recording, mixing and playback s
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I don't see the entertainment cartels thanking us, and perhaps more to the point paying us, for the invention of the camera, microphone, speaker, electric guitar, synthesizer, radio, TV, vinyl record, mylar tape, VCR, CD, DVD, huge hard drives, fast consumer grade computers, sophisticated music composition, scoring, recording, mixing and playback software, digital mastering, pitch correction, and most of all, the Internet.
Err what? I'm fairly sure that they "thank" the producers of all of those things in the form of equipment costs and licensing fees on a regular basis.
Or are you trying to imply that you personally invented digital mastering and should be compensated?
"The internet" is the closest thing to being created by "the people" in the sense that it started out as an army project way back in the day, but its long since been taken over by private interests, both in the equipment and the communications aspects.
I'm not a
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I did notice that you didn't actually equate piracy with theft, not in words. However, it seems to me that you agree with the spirit of that thinking. Are you a misanthrope? Do you think most of us are assholes? Because I assure you, most of us are pirates, whether we know it or not. If I pirate something, and make a donation to the artist, am I still an asshole in your book?
But it doesn't matter how wrong anyone thinks piracy is, how much moralizing is done, how many laws are passed against it, or h
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Nothing can stop racism, theft, rape, murder, etc. etc. etc.
We as a society agree that theft, rape, and murder cause harm and therefore are crimes. Racism is more difficult to handle, because it can be hard to detect, and hard to call, so we don't criminalize it in all cases, but we agree it is immoral, and that it harms people. As for monopolies, you have it backwards. Copyrights are monopolies, and both are bad!
Sharing should not be a crime not only because it can't be stopped. Sharing should also not be a crime because there is no harm done, and a lot of go
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Thank you for putting on public record how stupid you are.
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I can get any show/song I want on iTunes. If I didn't want to pay $3 an episode or a buck a song, I just wouldn't bloody own it.
Trouble is, you don't own the video, you're just renting the ability to watch it on a restricted subset of devices, for as long as the company decides you can.
At least the mp3's you buy are yours, you can do what you like with them: back them up with extreme paranoia, share them with friends, port them to anything that will play mp3 format, edit the metadata for shits and giggles, etc., etc. The video? Not so much.
If (and that's a big 'if') they ever move to DRM-free video services on iTunes, that's when
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Here's the thing:
If you don't like DRM, buy physical copies. Your paranoia that iTunes will suddenly stop letting you play purchased video is unreasonable, and a work around is readily available.
The solution is not piracy.
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Here's the thing:
If you don't like DRM, buy physical copies. Your paranoia that iTunes will suddenly stop letting you play purchased video is unreasonable, and a work around is readily available.
The solution is not piracy.
Heh, that one gave me a good chuckle, thanks! "If you don't like DRM, buy physical copies"...indeed :)
What in'ell do you think the MAFIAA is trying to do with their 'digital locks' clauses that they keep trying to push through up here? They are trying to make it illegal for a person to format shift (which in itself is perfectly legal, by the way) if it involves bypassing even the most ineffective DRM 'lock' on the market.
The DRM doesn't work, they know it doesn't work, yet they keep trying to beat that de
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1) That is the U.S. This is about Canada, I am Canadian and I don't care what stupid ass laws you guys allowed to pass.
2) Format shifting is not at discussion here, this is about piracy and format shifting is not piracy
3) You do not, and have never needed to have an internet connection for blu-rays to work at a basic level. There are some added bits that do require it but if your grandparents can't figure out an internet connection somehow I don't think they'll care.
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1) That is the U.S. This is about Canada, I am Canadian and I don't care what stupid ass laws you guys allowed to pass.
2) Format shifting is not at discussion here, this is about piracy and format shifting is not piracy
3) You do not, and have never needed to have an internet connection for blu-rays to work at a basic level. There are some added bits that do require it but if your grandparents can't figure out an internet connection somehow I don't think they'll care.
1) I'm just as Canuck as you, and what I am talking about is not what is in effect, but what they are trying to put in effect [notavailablein.ca]. We kicked up a fuss about it, but it seems that the digital locks [slashdot.org] is just not one they're willing to relinquish. I guess it would give their customers too much power, or something.
2) Yees, format shifting is not piracy, but it won't be legal either if these asshats get their way. Like, you can drive your car with insurance and a drivers license, but hey there, we're gonna make it
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Well as I said, format shifting is not piracy. So no, you doing it for someone else is not piracy (assuming you don't then take a copy for yourself).
As to downloading a copy after you own it, that's a bit of a grey area and here's why: You aren't doing anything wrong (unethical) by grabbing a copy of something you've already paid for. The person sharing most certainly is. Of course if there was a system in place to ensure you'd bought a copy before you could download then that'd be okay... But that would be
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You were modded "troll" because of the tone of your comment. Most people don't take kindly to being called "assholes", especially by someone who's 100% wrong. For instance, there's little or no "Don't you dare copy my source code without my permission" here, it's "the GPL protects me from some big corporation taking my code then suing me for using my own code." The pirates are mostly one of the following:
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I have season 5 of the Big Bang Theory DLing right now. The first four seasons are on overpriced DVDs sitting on my shelf, season 5 will be bought when they get the fucking lead out of their asses and let me pay for the damed thing!
You want frustration? Try getting ahold of the Discovery show "How it's Made" :) Seasons 1 through 3 are on the shelf, and I see now that they finally released season 4. Trouble is, the show is in it's 19th season...
For more years than I care to admit, I patiently recorded, cleaned up, cataloged and stored each new episode, filling in gaps in previous seasons by recording every rerun and deleting those I already had. We had them all nice and tidy, so we could watch pretty much any episode we liked, whene
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Except for France, which is twice Canada's size in population...