The Legality of Downloading MP3 - Research Paper Example

Proposal for term paper The legality of downloading mp3 Assem Almnashi Dalhousie The legality of downloading mp3 Introduction Nowadays, when there are so many talented singers, it has become a lot easier to listen to their music by using the Internet, rather than buying a licensed CD. This way, the consumer is happy, because he listens to whatever kind of music he likes, the singer is popular, because his music is downloaded from the Net thousands times per day, sometimes even more, so, at first sight, it is a win-win situation. Nevertheless, singing for the artist is a job; it is his way of earning money, so by downloading his “job” from illegal sites, the consumer is actually stealing his intellectual property, “forgetting” to pay for it. There are many contradictory opinions on this subject, and the fact that day by day the number of illegal mp3 downloads grows just makes the matter more and more actual and painful for the people whose work is being stolen. Transmitting mp3 files over the Internet has become by far the most popular method of distribution, generating in this way controversial and intense debates. This subject has been chosen for the research paper not only due to the indisputable popularity of the illegal actions, but also because of the fact that most of us have at least once downloaded the music we like by using these illegal sites, even if we are aware that it was wrong. Nevertheless, “the law enforcement community in the twenty-first century seems to have finally awakened to the fact that ...computers are here to stay”1 and something must be done in order to solve this problem as efficiently as possible. The term paper will be focused on revealing the essence of the growing popularity of illegal mp3 downloads, the legal matters that arise from these actions and come up with some recommendations on combating this phenomenon. The author will focus both on the national Canadian context, as well as on the international one, pointing out the main differences and similarities and analyzing them. The paper will be finished with the conclusions, where the personal opinion of the author is expressed, as well as some recommendations, which, in the author’s opinion, could improve the statistics. 1. Status-quo of the illegal mp3 downloads 1.1. Statistics and damage It is not possible to talk about illegal mp3 downloads in Canada, where downloading music from peer-to-peer networks is legal, uploading it being against the law. “Canada has a private copying levy, which grants the right to make personal, non-commercial copies of sound recordings. Canada has imposed levies (fees) on recording mediums like blank CDs and similar items. These levies are used to fund musicians and songwriters for revenues lost  due to consumer copying. For this reason, you do not see huge fines and court cases regarding illegally copied music in Canada, like you see in the U.S.A.”2 One of the serious financial issues that arise from the illegal mp3 downloads is the revenue loss, which seems to have been of approximately 20 percent per year starting with 1999. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), however, announced that the number of units shipped domestically from record companies to retail outlets and special markets (music clubs and mail order) fell by 10.3 percent3 in the recent years. Moreover, Hilary Rosen, President and CEO of the RIAA, claimed that over 23 percent of the surveyed music consumers do not pay for the music they listen to, as downloading it for free from specialized websites seems more appealing and convenient. The majority of these people have made copies of the illegally downloaded music, comparing to the 13 percent that was registered two years earlier. According to a report released by IFPI in 2008, more than 95 % of the music downloads were illegal, that being equivalent to a total number of more than 40 billion songs. This statistic shows clearly that the situation created in 2007 continued to exist in 20084, too. Moreover, according to the considerable number of studies that have been conducted in this domain by specialists, the link between lost sales and illegal downloading is incontestable. According to a “new POLLARA … Canadian artists struggle to earn a living from music, taking home just $16,500 a year on average from their craft, after expenses..”5 However, it is not so simple to establish the exact damage and losses that the music industry has to suffer because of the illegal download. It is that not only the industry as a whole is affected by this phenomenon, but also the artists, the musicians and all the persons involved in creating music, like sound technicians, recording studios, and music stores are affected by it. The author will try to comment and explain the statistics and its impact on the electronic world of music. 1.2. Legal issues In Canada, the copyright holders’ rights are protected by the Copyright Act, which regulates the legal protection of the copyrighted works, including music files. According to this act, any work which has been created or written becomes automatically legally protected from the first moment of its existence. One of the weak points of this act, which allows Canadian users to download music without paying for it is the provision which stipulates that “…the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of (a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording, (b) a performer’s performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or (c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer’s performance of a musical work, is embodied onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer’s performance or the sound recording.”6 Therefore, downloading music from the internet is legal, the infringement occurring only in case of uploading it into public networks. This is a weak point according to the interested persons, who lose a lot of money because of this provision. However, the consumers do not find this provision disturbing at all. On the contrary, the Canadians are the lucky ones in this matter. On the other hand, the researchers believe that the fact that Canada has the highest rate of illegal mp3 download is the result of an old, un-modernized legislation. Several bills were proposed that contained reforms and updates of this act, but none of them has been accepted so far. Canadian peer-to-peer music sharing does not fall under any legal prohibition7, such programs like Kazaa or Morpheus being very popular in this country. In the paper, the author will focus on revealing some of the issues mentioned above, as well as others, like: legal means for the copyright holders to protect their rights and impact of the Canadian liberties in this domain on other countries’ music industry, as we all know that the World Wide Web has no borders. 2. Law Cases The fact that the Canadian legislation does not regard music download as a violation of the existing copyright provisions lead to the lack of important law cases in this domain in this country. The author will analyze in the paper the Canadian and international cases in this domain. There was a case when the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) tried to change the situation and therefore - requested the judge’s permission to identify the IP of 29 alleged Canadian file sharers, in order to sue them after they had been identified. However, the Canadian judge rejected CRIA’s request as in Canada the actions of downloading music and sharing it with other people online are legal, in spite of its illegal status in USA and other countries. In Europe, for example, the situation is completely different. In 2009, for example, “four men connected to The Pirate Bay, one of the largest BitTorrent file-sharing sites, were convicted by a Swedish court of contributory copyright infringement. Each defendant was sentenced to 1 year in prison and was ordered to pay a joint fine of 30 million Swedish crowns ($3.58 million)”8 Moreover, since the beginning of the trial the membership of this distributor gas increased by over 50%, most of the subscribers opting for its new $6 anonymization VPN service, which allows torrent feeders and seeders to conduct their business in private without leaving a trace of their internet IP addresses. The number of law cases in this domain is enormous, considering the tough legislation in this domain in other countries, which cannot be said about Canada, whose legislation does not create the proper framework for infringements to occur in this domain. In the paper, the author will focus on analyzing some of the main international cases that have somehow influenced the legal regulations in this domain. Conclusions The critics have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Canadian copyright legislation, which allows people to download whatever music they prefer, anytime they want, without paying a dollar for it. Canada, however, remains to be the country that tries to make its citizens happy and ignores the worldwide critics. So should Canada change its legislation and take the example of the countries that make artists earn billions? On the other hand, who said that artists must be rich? However, it is possible that paying for music must be paid, just as you pay for any service or goods that you buy for your own personal use. How is music any different from any other goods? Of course, the price should be reasonable and the customer must be encouraged to buy that music, by offering him high quality of the sound, bonuses, and discounts. The author hopes to reveal all the issues mentioned in this paper and come up with several useful recommendations in this domain. References: 1. Debra Littlejohn Shinder, Ed Tittel. 2002. Scene of the cybercrime: computer forensics handbook. Rockland, MA. Syngress Media. 2. Beal Vangie (October 1, 2009). When is downloading music from the internet illegal? Webopedia. Retrieved on April, 9, 2010 from http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2004/music_downloading.asp 3. George Ziemann (December 11, 2002). RIAA’s statistics don’t add up to piracy. AzOz. Retrieved on April 9, 2010 from http://www.azoz.com/music/features/0008.html 4. Adams Sean (January 16, 2009). 95% of music downloads in 2008 were illegal - DiS reacts and suggests two solutions. Drowned in sound. Retrieved on April 9, 2010 from http://drownedinsound.com/news/4136081 5. Douglas Hyatt (June 6, 2008). Economic Impact of Canada’s Music Industry Extends Far. Ontario media Development Corporation. Retrieved on April 9, 2010 from http://www.omdc.on.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=6271 6. Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42, s.80. 7. Mackenzie, E. (2007). If I had a million downloads, I’d buy me a CD. Retrieved March 17, 2009, from Web Site: http://carleton.ca/Capital_News/16112007/n5.shtml 8. Staff Wired (April 17, 2009). The Pirate Bay Guilty; Jail for File-Sharing Foursome. Threat level. Retrieved on April 9, 2010 from http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/04/pirateverdict/ Bibliography: 9. Debra Littlejohn Shinder, Ed Tittel. 2002. Scene of the cybercrime: computer forensics handbook. Rockland, MA. Syngress Media. 10. Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42, s.80. 11. Mackenzie, E. (2007). If I had a million downloads, I’d buy me a CD. Retrieved March 17, 2009, from Web Site: http://carleton.ca/Capital_News/16112007/n5.shtml 12. The Digital Millennium Act 13. The Canadian Copyright Act 14. Adam D. Thierer, Clyde Wayne Crews (2002). Copy fights: the future of intellectual property in the information age. Massachusetts: Cato Institute 15. George Ziemann (December 11, 2002). RIAA’s statistics don’t add up to piracy. AzOz. Retrieved on April 9, 2010 from http://www.azoz.com/music/features/0008.html 16. Douglas Hyatt (June 6, 2008). Economic Impact of Canada’s Music Industry Extends Far. Ontario media Development Corporation. Retrieved on April 9, 2010 from http://www.omdc.on.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=6271 17. Adams Sean (January 16, 2009). 95% of music downloads in 2008 were illegal - DiS reacts and suggests two solutions. Drowned in sound. Retrieved on April 9, 2010 from http://drownedinsound.com/news/4136081 18. Staff Wired (April 17, 2009). The Pirate Bay Guilty; Jail for File-Sharing Foursome. Threat level. Retrieved on April 9, 2010 from http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/04/pirateverdict/ 19. Beal Vangie (October 1, 2009). When is downloading music from the internet illegal? Webopedia. Retrieved on April, 9, 2010 from http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2004/music_downloading.asp 20. Michael Geist (February, 23, 2010). Tech giants defend Canadian copyright law. The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved March 22, 2010 from http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Tech+giants+defend+Canadian+copyright/2602278/story.html Read More