Canadian ISPs to pay royalties?

A group representing Canadian songwriters has asked the Supreme Court to rule that Internet Service Providers have to pay them royalties for music files. The ISPs would have to pay an annual royalty regardles of the nature of the music files transferred through their systems.

Should the demands of Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) be agreed to by the court, it could result in increase in Internet service fees paid by Canadian consumers. It would also open the door for other copyright holders, like movie studios and software manufacturers, to demand similar royalty payments to compensate on piracy.

The fees proposed by SOCAN are 25 cents per subscriber per year plus 10 per cent of any gross profit made by ISPs through the sale of advertising.

"This is the big case for the Internet. This will set the position on how we are going to treat Internet service providers, whether they are going to be seen as people who are responsible in some way for content that goes through their services," said Mark Perry, a professor of law and a professor of computer science at the University of Western Ontario.

Source:
CTV

Written by: Jari Ketola @ 30 Nov 2003 12:24

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11 comments

Buik

This is pure bovine defecation. Are they now going to sue public utilities? Simply because they provide one of the "building blocks" of piracy???? How about water companies while we are at it. Without water, we cannot live. If we are not alive, we cannot pirate songs, software, movies.... etc. Guess we would not be around to legally purchase their product either.

Scotty, Beam me up!! There's no intelligent life down here.

Stretch the cash. Bargain hunting. System is not static.

30.11.2003 13:28 #1

FlthyChry

It's retarded. And because it's retarded I'm sure they are going to get away with it. In fact the ISP will charge the customer 25% more to cover the fee and admin costs. Bang!

30.11.2003 16:21 #2

ZX6R

A pile of greedy, socialist pigs. But living in Canada we ought to get used to it. Our communist, socialist government will surely agree to this.

30.11.2003 20:39 #3

Ghostdog

I doubt this will get through. It�s too far off. It�s like suing the tobacco companies because your husband died of cancer. Pure greed.

30.11.2003 20:49 #4

Ausgum

If royalties are paid then dosen`t it make it legal to download their music?

1.12.2003 00:22 #5

Ghostdog

No, I don�t think so. Artist�s rights organizations already receive an amount of money for every blank CD, DVD and MD bought. That doesn�t make it legal for us to copy music.

This is actually something I�ve been thinking about now that copy-protectection on CDs is being force-feed to us. The "tax" on the blanks is supposed to cover up for the illegal use of music. If we no longer can copy CDs we shouldn�t have to pay the tax and blank CDs would get cheaper.
The EFF should look in to this. It would natuarlly be a struggle since that would mean less money in the record labels� treasure chest.

1.12.2003 03:58 #6

Nephilim

Where the hell does 10% of gross profits from the sale of adverts have anything to do with compensation for piracy? Someone please enlighten me.

I don't see the glass as half empty or half full. I just want to know if anyone spit in it.

1.12.2003 09:09 #7

#afonic

I don't think they get money from blank CD-Rs, are you sure?
It doesn't make sense, I can right MY songs in a blank CD why should I pay THEM?

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1.12.2003 11:13 #8

rah

it depends on what CD-R /DVD+-R you buy, the ones with Audio Printed on the Cover are no different to the normal ones Accept you pay a Tax that goes to RIAA or some such organization, that's why they are more expensive it has nothing to do with quality or anything like that, they regard this as fair practice to make those of us who take CD's we have bought, and make our own compilations onto blanks pay for the privilege

1.12.2003 23:36 #9

Ghostdog

At least in Finland we pay a tax-like fee called "kasettimaksu" on blanks. dRD knows more about this than I do.

2.12.2003 04:05 #10

chthomson

In 1998 the Copyright Act in Canada was changed to allowed consumers to make copies of music works legally. The following is a quote from the Copyright Act
80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), 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.
With this change came a levy (tax?) on recordable medium in 2000. The current levy on CD-Rs is 21� each. There is a proposal to increase the levy and to expand the mediums the levy applies to including MP3 storage. For further details see http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml.
To me the long and short of this issue in Canada I can make copies of any musical work for my personal use legally without fear of penalty.

8.12.2003 05:01 #11

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