Apparently impressed by the success that the RIAA has had suing preteens and grandmothers for file-sharing, the Canadian Recording Industry Association is threatening to bust out the lawyer stick north of the border. Despite the recent ruling by the Copyright Board of Canada that P2P downloading is legal, the CRIA believes that the copyright laws in Canada are irrelevant because they were created prior to the advent of P2P sharing and may choose to challenge the ruling in court. Now, they are looking closely at going after the uploaders; those who share a substantial number of songs:
http://www.globetechnology.com/servl.../TPTechnology/
http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1071297605.html
"It's totally clear that it's illegal. It's distribution, it's absolutely illegal. When you've got individuals who have 4,000 and 5,000 songs on their hard drives and are making them available to tens of millions of people, those individuals have no concern about the artists or the songwriters or the music or anything connected with the creative or business process of making music." It's an example, too, of the gradually stronger language the CRIA has adopted as the lawsuits have continued in the U.S.
Any litigation would be a course of action "we are really being forced into. It's a process that's a last resort, to try and address the huge problems, because the industry's lost 30 per cent of its retail base since 1999. The losses [in Canada] are in excess of $425-million. Each of the major record companies have had staff layoffs on the average of 20 per cent. This is a major issue not only affecting the careers of new artists and new music. It's affecting the livelihood of Canadians and their families. It has been a devastating process."
Similar to the RIAA, the CRIA seems overly willing to pin the blame for revenue losses solely on file sharing, choosing to overlook other causes such as high prices, an economic downturn, and rampant piracy in many parts of Asia. Hopefully, the CRIA will learn from the missteps of the RIAA and choose the road less travelled. Don't count on it.