The legal legitimacy of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks in Canada differs considerably compared with those of their American counterparts (see Legal issues USA). The fundamental distinction in Canadian laws was established in March 1998 – roughly a year before the Napster phenomenon. An amendment to Part VIII of the Copyright Act made a provision for the legality of copying music and sound recordings onto audio recording media for private or personal purposes (Copyright Board of Canada 1999). There was little contention at the time about the ruling because the content that the significantly smaller P2P networks were providing posed little or no threat to the music industry and also because the ruling included a levy that was going to be imposed on blank recording media in order to “compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright� (Copyright Board of Canada 1999).
However, the unforeseen rise in the popularity of P2P networks to share musical content in the years to come altered this initial blasé stance adopted by the Canadian Record Industry Association (CRIA). Following a ruling made by the Copyright Board of Canada in December 2003 that stated that downloading songs from a P2P file-sharing network “appeared to be legal� (Borland 2003) the CRIA filed court requests for the identities of 29 file-sharers in an attempt to reproduce the results that the legal actions taken by the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) have had. A converse effect was the result for the CRIA with the courts not only denying the request but also ruling that users that both download music and make music available in shared folders are operating within their legal rights. An appeal to this decision was lodged by the CRIA in July 2004 but the only victory that the organisation has seen in its perceived fight against music piracy has been the adding of MP3 players to the list of recordable mediums that attract a levy according to the Copyright Act.
It can be argued that the revolutionary stance that the Copyright Board of Canada has taken is an effective model for which to fairly compensate copyright owners but yet still retain a fair use policy on intellectual content. And that’s really the key issue with establishing copyright policies in the new digital era that we are experiencing because:
In order to establish a balance as described by Laidler (2001) the notion that “For many workers in the information industry, intellectual property is the only tangible result of their labour� (Green 2002 pp.95-6) must be taken into consideration. On the other hand, the argument that “copyright laws are concerned to act in support of the public interest to ensure the free flow of information� (Green 2002 p.96) may be more pertinent because the majority of those pushing for a stricter enforcement of copyright laws are large corporations and as such don’t represent the public interest.
Despite the CRIA’s disapproval, the laws in Canada attempt to address both sides of this copyright and intellectual property debate; and it can be argued that they are the only laws in the world that do.
Borland, J. (2004) “Judge: File sharing legal in Canada�, CNET News.com, retrieved October 7, 2004, from http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5182641.html
Copyright Board of Canada (1999) "Copyright Act", retrieved October 7, 2004, from http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/news/c19992000fs-e.html
Green, L. (2002) “Information policy in the information society� in Technoculture: From alphabet to cybersex Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.
Laidler, T. (2001) “Intellectual property: A balance of rights� in Brown, H. et al. (eds), Politics of a digital present: Fibreculture reader Melbourne: Fibreculture Publications.
Marcial Christians 08:05, 29 Oct 2004 (EST)
