Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Canadian copyright infringement suit against RIAA record labels

It will be interesting to see how the Big 4 record labels defend themselves from the Canadian copyright infringement class action which has been launched against them.



Keywords: lawyer digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property portable music player

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

ROTFLMAO

Serves them right!

Anonymous said...

It's not hard to imagine them saying, "its our intent to pay up next Feb 31." That would fly here in the USA even if it Congress had to pass a retroactive law legalizing it. Perhaps it won't in Canada. --digger

Unknown said...

Do they have such a "pending list" here in the good ol' USA? If they do I wonder if Lory Lybeck would be available to help the artists get what is due them and obtain some injunctive relief for the victims of the RIAA at the same time? Too much to hope for, probably>

Anonymous said...

Why will it be interesting? Canadian law expressly sanctions what the industry is doing there. --diggerdeux

Alyssa said...

A non-expert, with an interest in learning more about my partner's world (he's a Canadian recording artist/musician), I have come to appreciate your blog posts. I look forward to my return visits. Thank you for inviting the world in.

Matt Fitzpatrick said...

David:

Closest thing I can find in the U.S. is SoundExchange, the royalty collection agency for the recording industry, thanks to an exclusive government charter.

Despite its government charter and ostensibly non-profit business model, it spends a significant amount of money lobbying through the musicFIRST Coalition, a copyright expansionist special interest group. SoundExchange also pushed for, and received, a steep 2007 rise in Internet broadcasting royalty rates.

More to the point of this post, SoundExchange has a tough time tracking down hard-to-find artists to pay them their share. Obscure folks like Peter, Paul, and Mary, you know. And, yes, artists forfeit their royalties to SoundExchange's coffers if they can't be found.

Biggest difference, of course, between SoundExchange and the CRIA being that SoundExchange's business model is fully sanctioned by the U.S. government.

Albert O. said...

Matt -

SoundExchange is only the royalty collection body for digital performances.

Second, do you have any reason why SE has a hard time paying out some of its royalties? Could it possibly be that they've tried to contact artists or management only to receive no response?

And finally, the pending list is authorized by Canadian law.

Unknown said...

Actually there's some disagreement as to the Pending List being sanctioned by Canadian law. Some lawyers feel it is, some don't. And even if it is 'legal' it may not be constitutional.