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Canada Rules That ISPs Don't Need To Pay Royalties For Subscriber Downloads
from the another-good-Canadian-decision dept
While some Canadian politicians seem a bit shady when it comes to understanding the intricacies intellectual property law, it appears Canadian judges are doing pretty well. First, they shot down lawsuits against file sharers by pointing out that the recording industry didn't actually have any evidence that files were uploaded or downloaded (just that they were "available"). Now, they've ruled that ISPs are not responsible for paying royalties when their subscribers download music. This was part of a money grab strategy by the entertainment industry who figured that they might as well just go after ISPs and see if they could get some cash out of them. The Canadian Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, found that ISPs are just "intermediaries," and should have no obligation to pay for what their subscribers are doing.
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Cuts both ways
This was a round of anti-American posturing, when the "entertainment industry" referred to Hollywood. But watch the same judges rule in favor of the Canadian entertainment industry, requiring users to pay hefty fees to support the "patriotic" endeavour.
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Re: Cuts both ways
Good call, dorpus.
Coming from the "other" side of this issue (as a music producer), I'm a bit saddened that nobody seems to feel they ought to pay for music anymore. Believe me, i'm just as guilty with my allofmp3.com subscription, so the irony's not lost on me. I'm honestly trying to figure out where the money's going to come from in the future, and I don't mean the one-degree transaction from me; i'm talking about the whole enchilada.
Any ideas, Techdirt? Mike, another "Ask Techdirt?"
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No Subject Given
Up here in Canada there is a tax (hidden) on all blank media, including CD roms, cassette tapes, vhs tapes, etc, that have the POTENTIAL to be used to copy music.
This tax is quite steep; over a dollar a tape, perhaps a bit lower for CDs.
This money is gathered by an organization and is supposed to be forwarded to "artists" to compensate them for their lost revenue.
It is a total scam, where struggling artists cannot even afford to buy the blanks anymore to send out demos.
By the way, the organization has yet to shill out one single penny to musicians.
Typical Canadian Corruption.
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