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RECORDING INDUSTRY SETBACKS IN CANADA AND NEW ZEALAND

Brian Grainger

What is the difference between a public library making a photocopier available for users to copy pages from copyrighted material and a computer user making a PC available for users to copy music using a PTP service?

Absolutely nothing, said Justice Konrad von Finckenstein in Canada last month.

In so doing he denied the Canadian Recording Industry Association's wishes to force Canadian ISPs to divulge the names of 29 file sharers. He said the CRIA could not prove the 29 either distributed or authorised the copying of music.

In another win for common sense over the recording industry, New Zealand are proposing laws which would permit CD buyers to rip discs and transfer files to portable music players for personal use.

How different it is to the USA and the UK, where the recording industry has been fudging the figures to make believe downloading from the internet has affected their sales of CDs. Only recently, the industry said sales of CDs in the UK, (by value), had gone down because of file sharing. What they neglected to mention was that sales of album CDs in the UK had gone UP by quantity. File sharing cannot be having much effect if quantity sales have gone up. The reason sales by value had gone down was that album CDs can now be obtained for about £10, whereas it used to be £12-16, and single CDs sales have gone down - not surprising, since the price is extortionately high when compared to an album!

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