Canadian Musicians May Get A Windfall
Pirates against pirates…
You got to admire the Canadian Recording Industry Association… after they fleeced us for buying blank CDs, they’ve come up with a new way to get money into someone’s pocket.
Members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, including the Big Four (Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada), face the prospect of damages ranging from $50 million up to $6 billion due to their use of artists’ music without permission.
One part of the complaint says the companies have shown “reckless, high-handed and arrogant conduct aggravated by their clandestine disregard for the copyright interests of the class members in contrast to their strict compliance enforcement policy and unremitting approach to consumers in the protection of their corporate copyright interests.”
The music industry’s has blatantly abused of a certain aspect of Canadian copyright practices—something that the labels themselves don’t even deny doing.
As University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist pointed out on his blog, the issue stems from a change to the law in the 1980s that eventually produced something known as the “pending list.” Essentially, record companies no longer had to get a compulsory license every time they wanted to use a song for, say, a compilation album. Instead, they went ahead and used the song without waiting for authorization or making payment, adding the song to a list of music that is pending authorization and payment. That basically means the record industries could use songs as long as they swore they would get authorization and pay the artist for it eventually.
Instead of keeping up with its tab on the pending list, the recording industry just kept adding songs—without obtaining any rights. The pending list among the lawsuit’s defendants has topped 300,000 songs from both large and small artists alike—300,000 songs that the labels are openly admitting that they have not secured the rights for. In the complaint, the plaintiffs claim that the record companies have been unjustly enriched by the use of their unauthorized music (they have, after all, been selling the music without permission and not paying out).
So once they get their $50 million to $6 billion owed, it would be interesting to see how long musicians and artists in Canada have to wait… and how much they’ll actually receive. Don’t hold your breath.
photo credit: San Diego Shooter
December 8th, 2009 at 10:41 am
These are the same recording industry companies that are taking people to court because they download music from the net. Criminals are usually the one’s who complain the loudest when they are expected to play by the same rules that they want everyone else to adhere to.
December 8th, 2009 at 11:58 am
The only solution to this is for us peasants to quit buying CD’s at all, and go back to the way it was when our carbon footprint was minimal.
Instead of buying someone else’s music, we must make our own, just like folks did before the era of recorded music.
I realise that making the instruments will create more carbon,but only temporarily,as the instruments will last for decade.
And for those purists who disdain even that slightly polluting solution,may I recommend taking “throat singing”lessons from the nearest available Tibetan, or just placing a blade of grass between you hands and blowing.