Cost of Digital Piracy to Creative Industries & All
UPDATED: This post certainly generated a lot of comments!
Readers asked if the extensive quoting of Janis Nixon's article meant that her ideas were endorsed by the Toronto Public Library. The quoting of Janis Nixon's article is not meant in any way to imply that the Toronto Public Library shares her views. It is never the intention of the Business and Personal Finance bloggers to endorse one particular view over the other. We sometimes explore industry issues, and Janis Nixon's article is just one side of this particular topic, in a Canadian context.
Here are some sources that taken together will present a more balanced view of this subject:
Some of these books are a little older, and some are American, but all give a good idea in general of the issues involved.
Anderson, Chris. Free : the Future of a Radical Price. 1st ed. New York : Hyperion, c2009.
Geist, Michael A. From radical extremism to balanced copyright : Canadian copyright and the digital agenda. Toronto : Irwin Law, 2010.
McLeod, Kembrew. Freedom of expression® : Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property. 1st University of Minnesota Press ed. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
Fisher, William W. Promises to keep : technology, law, and the future of entertainment. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2004.
Online Databases (TPL library card is required):
Opposing Viewpoints in Context. This database provides opinions from many sides of current debates.
Article databases such as Canadian Business and Current Affairs (CBCA), Academic OneFile, Canadian Newsstand, and others can also be searched.
Statistics Canada (free online publications)
For those interested in the economic well-being of Canada's cultural industries in general, the Service Industries Division of Statistics Canada has recently published a series of reports at their web site. They are:
Book Publishers 87F0004XWE
Film and Video Distribution 87F0010XWE
Film, Television and Video Production 87-010-XWE
Film, Television and Video Post-production 87-009-XWE
Heritage Institutions 87F0002XWE
Motion Picture Theatres 87F0009XWE
Newspaper Publishers 63-241-XWE
Periodical Publishing 87F0005XWE
Sound Recording and Music Publishing 87F0008XWE
Spectator Sports, Event Promoters, Artists and Related Industries 63-246-XWE
Performing Arts 87F0003XWE
Ask a TPL librarian to help you locate them, if assistance is needed.
You may also want to have a look at the Canadian Library Association's statement on Bill 32, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act : Protecting the Public Interest in the Digital World.
ORIGINAL POST: Dated June 23, 2011
Creative industries are becoming increasingly unstable due to digital piracy. Film, television, newspapers, video-games, books, and any form of "creative work" or "intellectual property" are vulnerable to illegal file sharing. Hundreds of thousands of people employed across Canada directly or indirectly will be negatively impacted as a result.
In an article entitled "Last Call to Save an Industry", Janis Nixon of Universal Music Canada notes that "the storm facing artists, businesses and employees in music, movies and publishing has been brewing for more than a decade." For example, "in Canada's music business, legitimate sales have fallen by more than half over the last decade as theft through unauthorized downloading has skyrocketed."
The OECD estimated that Canada had one of the "highest per capita rates of file sharing among OECD countries in 2004." Consequently, many jobs were lost. Janis Nixon warns "thousands more could follow."
Likewise, the creative industries in Europe have lost an estimated 10 billion Euros in 2008 from piracy. An estimated 240 billion Euros may be lost by 2015 if no action is taken.
Yet, Janis Nixon states that it is not too late to restore the viability of the creative industries. At present, there is a need for "clear laws that unambiguously define legal and illegal activities and provide rules for a legitimate marketplace to which creators and their investors can be fairly compensated."
She continues "Our copyright laws must be updated to reflect today's digital and mobile technologies, and the unprecedented volume of file sharing they make possible."
It is concluded "Consumers need to know what is right and what is wrong. Pirate sites that freely exploit the ambiguity in our laws need to know that theft of intellectual property will not be tolerated in Canada and that this is no safe haven for their illegal activities."
On the other side, "creators need to know that if they produce a creative work, they will be able to decide how and when to release it to the public."
For the full article or other views on this topic, go to the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) web site. Click HERE to visit.
For books on copyright law and intellectual property, search the Toronto Public Library catalogue with the subjects Copyright – Canada or Intellectual property – Canada. Click HERE to begin your search.
12 thoughts on “Cost of Digital Piracy to Creative Industries & All”
Janis Nixon is being a little narrow minded in calling this “theft through unauthorized downloading” in Canada. However, given her job, I would not expect anything less.
The truth is that in Canada, we pay for downloading music (and i’m not talking about itunes here) with every blank CD that is purchased. We are charged a levy, and this levy is charged regardless of if the blank CD is used for music or for non-music purposes.
Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law. He was asked: “What is the current legal status of downloading music and video files in Canada? Also, is it legal to make a copy of someone else’s music CD for your own personal use?”
His response was: “Downloading music for personal, non-commercial purposes is arguably legal in Canada due to the private copying levy which places a levy on blank media such as blank CDs. The private copying levy does not extend to video as it only covers sound recordings. Making a personal copy of a music CDs is also covered by the private copying levy.”
This should provide an opinion of someone who doesn’t simply have a vested interest in the music industry.
Hope this helps.
This is very biased post. Please remember that copyright is a legal concept tied to, and limited by, provisions for fair dealing and that users have rights to use and copy material under the legal rights of fair dealing. For a library especially, it is shameful to publicly espouse such an shallow view of copyright law and policy. If the current economic models of the music industry are failing, what proof is there that it is due to “illegal piracy”. This is just propaganda designed to make rich companies richer at the expense of everyone else in society who is labelled as “stealing” and “theives” by listening to music freely available. What real evidence is there that the industry’s problems have resulted in job losses? Has the free sharing and use of material not created new music types? One need only think of the beginning of Rap music in the late 1970s and 80s. Furthermore, to link to the IFPI website, an industry lobby group, is grossly inappropriate. Threatening people with criminal sanction for pursuing lawful use of material puts a chill into the creative life of TPL users. TPL is doing nothing but thoughtlessly referring people to “search the catalogue” while pumping needless misinformation out to its users. For anybody who wants to get a fair and balanced view of Canadian copyright law from a citizen’s perspective, not a billion dollar mega industries, read Canadian Copyright : a Citizen’s Guide by Lura Murray and Sam Trosow available at TPL.
Why is the library posting links to these industry shills and their falsified data? Libraries should stand up for a balanced copyright reform and not support these corporate scumbags who pretend to stand up for “artists”. What a crock.
Who buys blank CDs anymore?
Forget the companies. People who download music they haven’t paid for are still stealing from artists. It’s only “freely available” because you choose not to pay for it.
And to assume everyone who downloads music for free is an artist him/herself who is only creating new music is disingenuous.
You can’try to justify what you do any way you like, but you cannot possibly say that not paying for music is good for musicians in the long run.
Paul
I guess the key word in your fourth paragraph is “arguably”.
@a said…
i don’t think it’s fair to single out one word from my post, such as the word “arguably”. the point of my post is that there are clearly other very learned views at odds with that which is being proposed by the library (and the one person quoted) in this blog. I do also think that the TPL should consider this before posting something in a blog that appears to be the OFFICIAL view of the TPL.
Nevertheless, in response to your post, my guess is that this has never gone to court under this argument. I’m no legal scholar but I think if it had gone to court and this was argued, his statement would have been more clear cut. However, due to the fact that Mr. Geist is in the position that he is in, his point I believe clearly means more than me (and perhaps you) simply saying we don’t like something. Mr. Geist has also indicated that the recording industry “wants to have their cake and eat it to”, meaning that they want to collect money from people because they download songs in the form of the levy, but also want to make it illegal to do so.
I feel sorry for the artists in that they are in effect caught in the middle of a recording industry which has (in many people’s views) made what amounts to a PR mistake by having this dual view of charging for downloads and also saying that it is illegal. What I do not feel sorry for is the recording industry in that they are making their point by saying how much this hurts the artists when in fact they are still profiting from the levy, a levy that is supposed to be distributed to artists.
Not paying for music in the long run is bad for musicians. However, I believe that it is clear that we are paying for music that is downloaded in the form of the levy. This is not a “justification” as it is the purpose behinid the levy.
I’m glad you mentioned that the blog is not official TPL policy or written by staff, in all honesty this morning I missed that very important point, which is my fault for not reading it closer and commenting in haste. Nevertheless it may very well come across as TPL’s policy to others as well, so they should take the time to add a balanced view or digest the opinion of authors and write their own content as opposed to passing on a biased view. After all, librarians and libraries are supposed to be trusted to offer their public sourced and authoritative content and let the individual decide for themselves how to measure the worthiness of the arguments therein.
The issue is not whether musicians get paid, it is how much they get paid and who pays them. Music is more than a physical commodity controlled and managed by record companies. It is closer to an idea than a box of cookies, although people often share each. It costs nothing to duplicate music files unlike making more cookies- if I eat your cookie you can’t eat it too. If I steal a CD from a store, library or person, they are deprived of that CD. However, if you rip a track and share it with me the track still exists as before. Record companies want to take away that choice from people and want to criminalize sharing while paradoxically want to charge for the “theft”. That’s a retrospective idiot tax imposed on a uninformed society by a corporate elite. People might not buy a track that they can get for free, or they might go out an buy the CD after listening to it. It’s theft to re-sell the track that my friend rips, but its not theft to share it. The idea that if everybody shared music files musicians would not get paid at all and stop making music is ridiculous- a totally unrealistic exaggerated fear.
Hi Michael – i was actually indicating that it appears to be TPL policy. do you know where it states that it is not? This blog is on the TPL website and I could not find any disclaimer that usually comes saying “the views expressed are not…”. therefore, i considered it to be the official TPL policy. if you would let me know where it states that it isn’t, that would be appreciated.
I agree with you, btw, that they should have taken the time to add a balanced view. There are other views out there that are not simply from the music industry. I would think that they should have known this.
Fact piracy is with us! Fact piracy will always be with us while the internet is still largly unmoderated and I for one would not like governments to dictate to us what we can and cannot download.
It is up to the companies that produce the items to make sure their products are copy proof the technology is already there to make it happen. However I can see this only working with new unpublished material as it is to late for existing works its already out there.
Regarding the update to this post, thank you for taking the time to clarify if this is the view of the TPL, and also to provide alternative views in the form of obtainable books from the library (including from my quoted source, Michael Geist). Anyone can also look up on google to find Q&A’s or other commpents from Michael Geist (an expert in this field without an apparen’t vested interest either way) regarding copyright.