We Canadians love the Net and love music. So if the RIAA, et al, manage to terrorise American p2p users, large and small, into abandoning online file sharing altogether, and if other countries achieve similar results, will Canada take up the slack?

And if we do, what then?

On March 19, 1998, Part VIII of Canada's Copyright Act dealing with private copying legalized, "copying of sound recordings of musical works onto audio recording media for the private use of the person who makes the copy (referred to as 'private copying'). In addition, the amendment made provision for the imposition of a levy on blank audio recording media to compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright in eligible sound recordings being copied for private use. The Copyright Board's decision issued today [December 17, 1999] sets a levy for this purpose."

That's 'private copying' (ie, file sharing) in Canada, as expressed by Canada's Copyright Board. And most Canadians don't even know they're paying the levies, which are:

Analog Audio Cassette Tapes (of 40 minutes or more in length): 23.3 cents per unit

MiniDiscs, CD-Rs Audio and CD-RWs Audio: 60.8 cents per unit

CD-Rs and CD-RWs: 5.2 cents per unit.

In other words, the RIAA and the rest of the music industry's trade organs can threaten and rant 'til the cows come home, but in Canada, people can legally Share the Music.

That's why Brian Robertson and the Canadian Record Industry Association are wasting their time with implied, but completely empty, threats against Canadian file sharers. What it says, or doesn't say, is completely irrelevant in Canada and everywhere else. And the same applies to the organization itself.

In the meanwhile, certain Euro-MPs are desperately trying to have European laws amended, and RIAA clones in other countries are trying to emulate the situation in the US. But as Canada's copyright board points out on its site:

"At least 25 countries, including most G-7 and European Union members, have introduced comparable [to Canada] regimes with respect to the private copying of sound recordings."

Jon Newton

Ive been saying this all along.
They cant do shit to us here.

I agree.. SPIKESTER.. but someone still has to make this point VERY CLEAR to the judges ,media and the public. I'm hoping it will be hammered out in court with some real good defense attorneys

I wish we had consumer protection in the United states, or that the levies we paid on blank media would actually go where it's supposed to-to the artists.

On both counts, of course, it simply isn't so. The blank media levies enrich the RIAA for it's fight against individual consumers, and protection for the consumer is something to be trotted out before Election Day and then forgotten about afterward.

The only real choice we have is where to spend, or not spend, our money.

And I won't be spending it on RIAA crap, ever again. I'll stick to the music I already own, and I have lots of it.

Time to trot out the turntable and rip some vinyl to mp3. The old cassette deck looks lonely, too. Time to rip some cassettes.

I knew I didn't buy those 40 gig drives for nothing.

It looks like CD-burning parties may become a new fad for those winter get-togethers. And we can do all that without ever connecting to the internet.

Imagine that.

I gotta move to Canada.

I read an article on the RIAA site about a Christian artist complaing that if you are are a Christain, downloading music, it is ilegal and you are performing an immoral act! !I used to buy a lot of praise & worship music and so has my wife. BUT NOT ANY MORE (with the ones attached to the RIAA)
What I say to the Christain artist who belong to the RIAA "YOU ARE SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL"! you are just as immoral as the people you accuse! if you belong to a an organization that takes advantage of power & money and has been sued for ripping people off, you are no better! Also the bible says DO NOT SUE your brother! to work things out outside of court! Enough preaching I say no more!

Add EL SALVADOR to this LIST, i was there in June, THERE IS NO WAY THEY CAN CURB IT THERE, PPL HAVE NOTHING AND USE THE INTERNET IN CAFE'S!

Eventually we will have to petition to get a new law established creating a new version of the fair use act. Copying material within the privacy of ones home for ones personal use should be first and foremost in a law for fair use. Not paying for the same thing over and over and over....
If royalties are already being recieved by the RIAA for the sales of blank discs or anything associated with burning devices and programs then why should they be allowed to charge multiple times for the same thing?

Am I making any sense?

If you are already making a profit from products sold to consumers should you be allowed to sue for more?

For whom were our rights created to provide for , The citizen or the corporation?

This is great

BoycottBuyMusic.com

isp-privacy :

Phone me.

Read This

Time to give up on copyright law?

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~1 50~1577963,00.html

fuck canada

To oldschoolhiphop I hope you are not referring to all the good old Canadians on this site who are fighting along side with you against the riaa..and believe me, you think the CRIA isn't trying to change it's laws to be like the RIAA? Darned straight they are!

And to isp-privacy...Jesus shared 5000 loaves of bread...do you not think that the bread company's nose was not a tad out of joint? But look at WHO was doing the sharing!!! pepe

Sorry it left part of it off

Time to give up on copyright law?

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E150%257E1577963,00.html

Question...

Would it be possible to rent a Canadian server, usable only for proxy p2p? If the server's located in Canada, and the p2p takes place in canada, have I broken any laws?

-- Funksaw

I don't think the CD-R tax is quite as high in the United States, but there is one. What I would like to know is how the clause to "to compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright in eligible sound recordings being copied for private use" works.

Since my theory is that independent artists buy the bulk of the recordable CDs in the world for making their own product, how is it determined who receives this compensation? And does anyone know anyone who has even heard of anyone that has ever received a dime from these "taxes" in any country?

I think it's all another scam and would be willing to bet that no artist ever receives any of this money supposedly intended for them.

As a Canuck, nothing would please me more than if this were true, but the author is reading far too much into the blank media levy. Canucks should also note that the CRIA is proposing MUCH stiffer levies.

In no way is the levy meant to make up for file-sharing and private copying is not file-sharing.

Links:
http://music.tinfoil.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=412

EVERYONE needs to see this...


Blame Canada
By Jay Currie 08/18/2003
E-Mail Bookmark Print Save
TCS

A desperate American recording industry is waging a fierce fight against digital copyright infringement seemingly oblivious to the fact that, for practical purposes, it lost the digital music sharing fight over five years ago. In Canada.



"On March 19, 1998, Part VIII of the (Canadian) Copyright Act dealing with private copying came into force. Until that time, copying any sound recording for almost any purpose infringed copyright, although, in practice, the prohibition was largely unenforceable. The amendment to the Act legalized copying of sound recordings of musical works onto audio recording media for the private use of the person who makes the copy (referred to as "private copying"). In addition, the amendment made provision for the imposition of a levy on blank audio recording media to compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright in eligible sound recordings being copied for private use."

-- Copyright Board of Canada: Fact Sheet: Private Copying 1999-2000 Decision



The Copyright Board of Canada administers the Copyright Act and sets the amount of the levies on blank recording media and determines which media will have levies imposed. Five years ago this seemed like a pretty good deal for the music industry: $0.77 CDN for a blank CD and .29 a blank tape, whether used for recording music or not. Found money for the music moguls who had been pretty disturbed that some of their product was being burned onto CDs. To date over 70 million dollars has been collected through the levy and there is a good possibility the levy will be raised and extended to MP3 players, flash memory cards and recordable DVDs sometime in 2003.



While hardware vendors whine about the levy, consumers seem fairly indifferent. Why? Arguably because the levy is fairly invisible - just another tax in an overtaxed country. And because it makes copying music legal in Canada.



A year before Shawn Fanning invented Napster, these amendments to Canada's Copyright Act were passed with earnest lobbying from the music business. The amendments were really about home taping. The rather cumbersome process of ripping a CD and then burning a copy was included as afterthought to deal with this acme of the digital revolution. The drafters and the music industry lobbyists never imagined full-on P2P access.



As the RIAA wages its increasingly desperate campaign of litigation in terrorum to try to take down the largest American file sharers on the various P2P networks, it seems to be utterly unaware of the radically different status of private copying in Canada.



This is a fatal oversight, because P2P networks are international. While the Digital Millennium Copyright Act may make it illegal to share copyright material in America, the Canadian Copyright Act expressly allows exactly the sort of copying which is at the base of the P2P revolution.



In fact, you could not have designed a law which more perfectly captures the peer to peer process. "Private copying" is a term of art in the Act. In Canada, if I own a CD and you borrow it and make a copy of it that is legal private copying; however, if I make you a copy of that same CD and give it to you that would be infringement. Odd, but ideal for protecting file sharers.



Every song on my hard drive comes from a CD in my collection or from a CD in someone else's collection which I have found on a P2P network. In either case I will have made the copy and will claim safe harbor under the "private copying" provision. If you find that song in my shared folder and make a copy this will also be "private copying." I have not made you a copy, rather you have downloaded the song yourself.



The premise of the RIAA's litigation is to go after the "supernodes," the people who have thousands, even tens of thousands of songs on their drives and whose big bandwidth allows massive sharing. The music biz has had some success bringing infringement claims under the DMCA. Critically, that success and the success of the current campaign hinges on it being a violation of the law to "share" music. At this point, in the United States, that is a legally contested question and that contest may take several years to fully play out in the Courts.



RIAA spokesperson Amanda Collins seemed unaware of the situation in Canada. "Our goal is deterrence. We are focused on uploaders in the US. Filing lawsuits against individuals making files available in the US."



Which will be a colossal waste of time because in Canada it is expressly legal to share music. If the RIAA were to somehow succeed in shutting down every "supernode" in America all this would do is transfer the traffic to the millions of file sharers in Canada. And, as 50% of Canadians on the net have broadband (as compared to 20% of Americans) Canadian file sharers are likely to be able to meet the demand.



The Canada Hole in the RIAA's strategic thinking is not likely to close. While Canadians are not very keen about seeing the copyright levy extended to other media or increased, there is not much political traction in the issue. There is no political interest at all in revisiting the Copyright Act. Any lobbying attempt by the RIAA to change the copyright rules in Canada would be met with a howl of anger from nationalist Canadians who are not willing to further reduce Canada's sovereignty. (These folks are still trying to get over NAFTA.)



Nor are there any plausible technical fixes short of banning any connections from American internet users to servers located in Canada.



As the RIAA's "sue your customer" campaign begins to run into stiffening opposition and serious procedural obstacles it may be time to think about a "Plan B". A small levy on storage media, say a penny a megabyte, would be more lucrative than trying to extract 60 million dollars from a music obsessed, file sharing, thirteen year-old.



If American consumers objected -- well, the music biz could always follow Southpark's lead and burst into a chorus of "Blame Canada". Hey, we can take it?.We'll even lend you Anne Murray.



Jay Currie is a Vancouver writer whose writing and blog is at www.jaycurrie.com

Also, this will enable Canadians to continue sharing their files with P2P users in the U.S. This will keep the level of file sharing high while reducing the number of subpoena targets in the U.S. (assuming the RIAA continues to go after uploaders only). This may be a mixed blessing but it does highlight the futility of the RIAA's efforts.

good post PEPE! thank-you

Did this site go down at all today?
I tried logging on around 11:30 AM nothing would come up .
Anyone else have trouble?

Righttoshare, why wait for a petition. Why not start it now.

Better yet, why not petition our state governments why we're at it. If Congress won't act, and if we can get two-thirds of our state legislatures to act, then we can get a Convention to propose an amendment to the Constitution defining copyright, protecting file sharing, and protecting the Internet. It says so in the Constitution and if Congress balked on the idea of a convention, then they'd be breaking the law of the land and that's just not acceptable.

Just check Article V for those here in the US. Time we excersise some of these rights we have.

Rightoshare I had the same problem.

I have started on a thank-you letter to Norm coleman. And i am going to try to encourage him to keep focused on this matter because there are so many People behind him. If he gets a handle on just how many of us would back him he might run with the ball. Its worth a try! I know it doesnt sound like much is being done but at least he is honest! Who else in the Ivory tower would admit to using Napster......lets give him some credit. I dont think he has any Idea how many are behind him we need him right now! there is nobody else that would stand up at this time

I know that waiting for something to happen is frustrating , however patience sometimes pays off. No one really knows what the outcome of these subpoenas will bring. It can appear as an uphill battle for everyone right now, but many surprises can spring up at the last minute. Don,t misunderstand me and think that I don't want to see change , but I think that a silent majority is waiting to unleash its anger towards all of this.

Not everyone who is concerned about this is watching the net. I've just recently talked with several people that have expressed their disproval with the way the RIAA is going about all of this. I think that since this is so LOW key in the media right now that many people aren't voicing their true feelings on the issue. The RIAA is only seeing us hotheads right now ( The Scouts and Sentries ) wait until the whole army comes marching down on them.

One thing we have in our favor is the ability to use our rights and make or change laws. The prohibition of the 1920's and early 30's taught us this. No matter how right or wrong something may appear we the people have the power to change it! I t doesn't happen overnight but it does happen. People will only take so much sh*t before they start throwing it back.

Fortunatly for us (unfortunate for the RIAA) I think they have chosen the wrong time to harrass the American public. Something else I see happening, as a result of all of this, is how disgusted people are becoming over the positions that THEIR ELECTED OFFICIALS are taking . Almost as if to ignore the people. This will not go over well for them.

Sorry about posting so long ,but after reading the posts on this site for the past week I see a lot of angry people with some different issues and from differing backgrounds that are coming together to fight against a common threat.

This one issue of copyright infringement that the RIAA is so doggedly pursuing may be the catalyst that brings forth a lot of new things. Either way I think eventually it will all come out on behalf of the people.

This is just the begining . Let's continue to educate ourselves on what we can do to see it all through!

It goes without saying in this forum that there is something fundamentally wrong with a trade organization collecting taxes of any kind. The fact that they have no defined means or apparent desire to redistribute the money they collect is criminal.

There are two other serious flaws with taxes levied on blank media that go beyond the RIAA's involvement. The first is that, as I understand it, I am entitled to make at least one copy for "archive" purposes, which means I have a backup in the event of the loss of or damage to the original media. This being an entirely legal copy, where do additional royalties to the artist come into play? The artist has already earned whatever royalties they are entitled to according to whatever crappy contract they have with their label.

The second flaw is that I may use any blank media I buy for purposes that have nothing to do with music. Most of the data on my hard drive is not music related. Why should anyone be "compensated" because I am backing up documents, media files, etc., that are my original works? They are not involved in the creation of those works. Why are they entitled to "compensation" for legally licensed software programs I make archive copies of on CDR? They didn't write the software.

It seems there is an underlying assumption that all blank media is somehow used to make copies of music. In the case of blank CDs, this makes no sense at all.

It also seems that this is a prime area in which to put the RIAA on the defensive. Many people who have never downloaded an MP3 file think this fight has nothing to do with them. If they knew they were paying taxes to the RIAA every time they purchase blank media, a CD-ROM drive, or a new hard drive, they might think again about being involved. There is nothing that gets an American's ire up like taxes, and the RIAA's money doesn't outweigh the voice of an angry electorate--especially when it's stolen from that electorate in the first place.

I guess we must be the 300 Spartans. If we are, lets issue KY tubes to everyone, because the Patriot Act is in effect. And you know what that means?

PATIENCE NOT WEAKNESS!

As a temporary measure...what if American p2p users transfer all their music files to cd or dvd rewritables in storage..keeping your music off of your hard drives....when you want something, get it from us (the Canucks) or whatever country it's coming from, transfer it again to your storage unit, this would stall the riaa, no files, no lawsuits.

In the meantime, still go after your congresspeople, still try to get the medias attention, etc, what ever action we need to take...

It would make the riaa look like fools!
(Not that they're incapable of doing that to themselves all by themselves!)

I'M reposting this on behalf of
IFeelFree.... because I think this could work! It sounds good...


Date: August 19, 2003 @ 2:55 PM
Also, this will enable Canadians to continue sharing their files with P2P users in the U.S. This will keep the level of file sharing high while reducing the number of subpoena targets in the U.S. (assuming the RIAA continues to go after uploaders only). This may be a mixed blessing but it does highlight the futility of the RIAA's efforts.

I have a question: Could the P2P networks prevent the ISPs from logging our P2P handles (user names)? I mean, the ISPs keep records that I logged on to Kazaa, let's say, but that's useless for the subpoenas unless they know what my username was. How do the ISPs know what username I used when I was there? Is there a way for the P2P programs to prevent these names from being logged by the ISPs? I'm not sure how this works so maybe I'm asking stupid questions.

To clarify: The RIAA subpoenas an ISP saying they want to know the identity of MusicNut@Kazaa.com who logged on to the Kazaa network at 3:45 PM last Tuesday. The ISP responds that they had 247 customers using Kazaa at that time but...if Kazaa doesn't allow the ISP to log the username, they can't determine the person's identity. Is such a thing possible? Could Kazaa "mask" usernames? How do usernames get recorded by the ISP? Again, please forgive me if my questions are naive and stupid.

I think here's the way it goes.
On Kazaa or KazaaLite, people have usernames. There are lots of people using the same username on KazaaLite, but each one has a unique IP address. If you have a firewall up and running, and you find another user to download or upload a file to or with, your machine has to kind of like have a handshake with their machine to initiate file transfer. The bots have been identifying the person by username, by the files they find available, and by the IP address. When they contact the ISP, they don't ask them who you are by your Kazaa username, your ISP doesn't keep records of your username. They demand the name ,phone, and billing address of the person who was using that IP address on the date and time in question, so, it is really your IP that identifies you, not the username, though they get all the info they can on who is allegedly "offering" files.
No question is stupid IFeelFree, as long as it is a genuine search for information and learning.
~code

CodeWarrior:

You said, "The bots have been identifying the person by username, by the files they find available, and by the IP address." True, when I log on to Kazaa and offer files, my username is there for all the world to see. But how does that get recorded by the ISP? The ISP only needs my IP address to transfer the files. Assuming the ISP doesn't record snapshots of the Kazaa screen, how is my username also transferred to the ISP? I guess I'm enquiring about the communication protocol. My basic question is, if the ISP only needs my IP address to conduct file transfer between me and someone else (along with their IP address, of course), why not "hide" my username? That way the ISP could never connect a list of Kazaa usernames with IP addresses. Noone seems to understand my question but I really think I'm onto something.

Up here in Canada, it seems to me that our IP addresses are constantly being changed by our server. If that be the case in your country, how is it that the riaa can trace anyone through ip addresses, if said address is not constant? pepe

ifeelfree

the isp only gets your ip address,how the bots are doing is getting your username off kazaa and loging your ip address from that,once they have your ip address then they find your isp.
when they know your ip address and your isp they call the n0c (network operation center..or what ever the hell it is out side of dsl) after that they can say.hay fucker i want to know where ip address 192.168.1.123 was connected to at 12.35am on the 5th of may 2003..now you know that they have to do all the legal shit,but if there riaa cocksmaokers then they say ok john smith of 1212 hill drive was useing that ip address...would you like his phone number???

sorry not much for typeing today,been working to much this week...

and there is no way for the isp not to log really,there systems need to know what ip address is where so that they can send out more ip addressess.

like say i own a isp and i have the ip range 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.2.255
i have one company that wants ip range 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.255,ok so that range is now to company a,then say im offering dynamic ip addressess and i have 255 customers that all want to be on the internet at the same time,then my name/dns server will have to give out the ip addressess everytime someone connects,so if one person disconnects then there is an ip free,so if that person reconnects then they might get another ip address,so on so forth

blah,blah...can we just just kmfdm to take care of this all ready...bring in tnt and waxtrax to bitch slap the riaa

It sounds like what you're saying is that the RIAA doesn't grab your username and turn it over to the ISP, but rather a bot scans for your IP address and they turn that over to the ISP? I misunderstood. I thought they were just reading off the usernames from the Kazaa screen and turning them over to the ISPs. Apparently, that's not the case. Sorry.

The day Canada becomes THE nation of anything is the day I fall over dead. Canada does whatever the United States tells it too.

To the Breather:Canada can be first of a lot of things. Basketball, the zipper on your pants, the birdman of Balgonie, Sk was in the air well before the Wright Brothers.And right now, we're offering gay marriage, we don't have the death penalty, and apparently we also have legal file sharing.

Hmm, Can anyone remind me again, why Canada sucks? I've lost perspective.

I dunno, i personally like their women. They are actually content with being WHITE if they are white, not like american women, who want to be black if they arent. Its rather annoying really, so thats why i like canada myself. LOL

Ifeelfree: Bot scans network, retrieves infringeing IPs. The bot passes the IPs and list of shared files on to the RIAA, who make their selections and demand identification from the ISP.

Canada will probably follow the US at some point, as will europe. Too much lobbying. Just have to find a way around the enforcer bots

Stuff like this reminds me why I moved to Canada in the first place--it's nowhere near the same as the US in terms of corporate interest outweighing public interest.

Like so many have said before... this is a battle the RIAA has already lost. There is no power on earth that can change it except for power blackouts like the one last week. Not to point out the obvious to raise spirits, but to my knowlege:

1) the RIAA has only issued 1000 subpoenas amongs 60,000,000 registered users
2) the RIAA is only going after users of the FastTrak network (Kazaa/Grokster etc.)
3) the RIAA has no jurisdiction in other countries (like Canada); it will be nearly impossible to stamp out even the most unprotected P2P services when they can legally serve from a number of geographic locations.


There are so many places to get media BESIDES the obvious/popular... for this very reason the RIAA will never win, it is like trying to stop the motion of the planets.

It's too late for them now, but the window of opportunity was right after they destroyed Napster. They should have mounted a massive effort to convert back catalog and old music to high quality MP3 format and offered the massive catalogs ONLINE on high speed servers at LOW prices (like $0.10 per song, $1.00 is never going to work, you may as well buy the CD at that price.) It's too late now because through all their arrogance they simply don't understand that either they move quickly and take the lead or be crushed in the stampede. The 'legit' pay sites have such a patheticly small offering at such high prices that they will all fail.

Let's try to stay on track here people. Canada has it's own problems. Separatists, Taxes, Social Medicine, inflation, other stuff.
I'm glad someone found a good thing that Canada's got. I like the idea that the language is so specific in the law, yet no one has challenged it yet. Maybe that's what we need here in the US. Instead of 40 pages defining what is "legal" file-sharing, we should use ONE SENTENCE. Maybe instead of bitching and whining about a "tax" *said with contempt* on blank media, we should be DEFINING where said "tax" goes.
I'm still unclear on how an organization that is supposed to be not-for-profit is garnering the monies imposed by the government. Doesn't that count as payola? Backlash? Kickbacks? That should also probably be a focus on any convention we can get organised. I mean, isn't that a very BLATANT misuse of government for corporate means?
A lot of this is confusing, and I'm sure there are more levels here than a wedding cake for siames twins, but that's the point. It seems that the RIAA, CRIA and all the ETRAAs (Euro Trash Recording Artists Associations) have taken current laws, mucked em up with legislation and half assed definitions, then loosed their legal squirrels on the world.
I for one am a realist. I know that when I log on to a p2p network, there's a better than 90% chance I'm being port scanned. I know that if I d/l something, there's a better than 50% that I'm being watched, and could get a subpoena. However, I am also educated.
I know that it is w/i my rights to request a bench trial (waiving right to a jury present, making it only the judge that renders the decisions) if ever brought up on charges by the RIAA. I know it is w/i my rights to waive counsel and represent myself. I know that the old saw about " A person who represents himself has a fool for a client".

I also know that I love music. It has gotten me thru some very tough times. It has ridden shotgun with me on my six or seven cross country drives. It has been my constant, unchanging and unjudging companion for many many years, and now I have to protect it and my rights to it.
just my opinion...
ttmmm

Breather, come on up here. It WILL be the day you fall over dead. I can't imagine why every country in the world hates you. And as far as I know you've still got a bug up your ass(along whith everything else) cause we didn't just do whatever we were told by your AntiChrist. People like you are the reason the US has a rep for being crass, uneducated hick morons. Luckily there are only a small minority of these idiots down there. Probably spends Friday night in the local watering hole yelling "white power" at the top of his lungs while smashing back shots of the cheapest whiskey in the house. No offense to everyone in the US with a brain.

P.S. we also have losers like this up here.

Hey Remye, you're right that Canada has problems, but other than taxes,(which still aren't so bad by European standards), the ones you suggested are old news.
Seperatism is fading in Quebec,(its growing in the west but only among a few disgruntled rednecks who no one listens to anyway).
Inflation is no worse here than it is anywhere else including the US.

And despite our medical systems' many flaws, I'd still take it over the over-complicated, uneven, profit-driven American system any day.

Some real Canadian problems include an emasculated military, high liquor taxes, and a mediocre government headed by an incompetent moron of a prime minister.
Also, we are so economically and militarily dependant on the US that we can't just say," No, we don't want to fight your trumped-up war, why should we send our soldiers away to die just so you can settle a grudge in Iraq? Besides, all the soldiers we have to spare are in Afganistan helping clean up your last mess,(you're welcome by the way), do you fuckheads ever REMEMBER Afganistan? Call us when you have a real war to fight, fuck off."

Otherwise, living in Canada is quite peachy if you can stand the weather, which varies depending on where you go.

I must add though that when I read the Canadian copyright act, I don't see how it makes file sharing legal, mainly because file sharing goes beyond "private" copying.

Oh, also, all feelings of patriotism aside, I'm afraid I sort of agree with Breather, we do kiss America's ass, and as long as we hide in their shadow we'll never accomplish anything really important.

To diggit

I may be a uneducated hick. But I'm know moron. I think you should not put that on all of us hicks out here. I only went to the eight grade. But I'm not a dummy when it comes to people that are doing wrong. I don't mean to put you down just be careful how you use the words. They can hurt a lot of people here. LOL to you diggit

If I recall, the levy on recordable media was instituted purely because of the perceived threat by that media impacting music sales, since CDR and recorders were getting so cheap every computer had one. It had nothing at all to do with mass P2P downloading.

Because of this, I suspect they will push for a similar crackdown on P2P here in Canada, though it may take a while...

All the same, it is uneffective, it merely slows the inevitable. They are only attacking users on the most prominent system. What are they going to do, scan every network in the world? It's impossible to control, all they can do is nail a few people and try to make public examples of them on TV.

I was reading some old news from the RIAA from about 3 years ago, something along the lines of 'piracy is doomed'. I couldn't help but chuckle. This is from the same people that thought they could invent some sort of technological solution to keep total control, and we all know where that ended up.

hey Diggit, are you from Toronto?

Great post , pepe !!
But that's ok you guys can keep Anne Murray !

I lived up there in the great white north for a while myself . Great people. Great fishing and hunting . Lousy taxes!

WABBITMAN

shoshidge, sorry if I made the wrong point. I realise all that was old news, THAT was one of the points I wanted to make. I've been to Canada a few times, had a good coupla days. I'm definitely NOT canada bashing.
Read the second line. I don't really think much about Canada. As far as I've always been concerned, they've been our "neighbors to the North" and that's about it. The other point I was trying to make was that there is NO reason to bash Canada at all. They have their problems, we have ours. I don't want to get involved in a "he said, he said" thing. No offense was meant, and if some was taken, I apologise, but only because my meaning to taken wrong.
We've ALL got problems, and thats' about all I care to say on the subject.
ttmmm

Cool Rem, I wasn't trying to be on your case, i just thought that while we're bashing Canada we might as well be current about it.
I think that if anything bothers the Canadian ego its the realization of how irrelevant we truly are on a global scale, if Canada dissapeared tomorrow no one would really notice

Regarding the US and Americans, either people love you or hate you, there's very little middle ground, one minute they're kissing your feet, next minute they're bombing you.

Most folks probably couldn't find Canada on a map, and if they could they wouldn't care anyway, we're just a nice, bland country which produces good comedians and shitty pop music.

sigh

gilbd: I think if you reread my post, you'll see that I was saying that people LIKE the Breather who cause the U.s.toget a reputation like that. Not saying that this rep is justified. In fact it pisses me off to no end when people like that cause a stereotype to occur. I'm sorry you misinterpretetd that or I didn't word it well. We propably have more morons up here in iglooland than you do down there.

Especially when you see how well I proofread that last post.

P.S. we DO kiss your ass most of the time, I will admit. That sucks. But us hicks do need to band together and if we kick ass on the RIAA I will definitely feel better about the US/Canada teamwork situation.

If Canada disappeared tomorrow, everyone who gets our exports at super-low prices,vacations here, shops here, and immigrates here would probably notice.

Canada is a nation of pussies. There is no Canada-US connection. Only the United States. The only reason that we are having a file sharing issue in the USA is because most of the good music of the world is created by the USA (and Britain) of course. Screw Canada and their pacifist attitude toward the world. Canada is no better than France. If the USA stopped exporting to Canada, your country would roll over dead. Just look at the meat industry after the Mad Cow incident. You are lucky the United States lifted that ban or that industry would have died.

Funny how the smelly Canadian country claims to be in the riaa fight along with Americans, but where were/are you in the global fight against religious scum and vile terrorist shit. Screw the Arab religion of Islam, Destroy it. Boycott Canada for being a non-player in the new global war.

I think the point is made. You have zero clue what your own govt is doing and you're falling for the biggest scam ever. But hey, you're fighting eeeeeeevil! Once you finish saving everyone else and and flee your own smoking crater that used to be a country, make sure you head south. That'd be DOWN on a map. A map is a paper that shows where countries are. Countries are...

Hi
I had to register and post this message!! To "Thebreather", are you for real!!? Weren't you on the Jerry Springer show last night? At one time I would have agreed that Canada is the U.S's puppet but not anymore! I'm glad that we didn't fight in the war! When your country asked, we said "NO". Just like we are fighting the U.S. on a few other issues. Softwood (which you are going to lose), Mad Cow (which I heard was the fault of the US and not what your governments' propoganda tried to feed the world)and a whole host of other issues in Canada vs. the U.S. and the U.S vs many other countries. All one has to do is go to the World Trade Organization web site and look at all the disputes involving the U.S. I might sound like I am not being fair to Americans but collectively as a nation, you believe anything your president tells you. As far as the fight with the RIAA, I think that canadians should support the fight against them. I wonder though, if the U.S. would be there to help us if the situation was reversed? To diggit, I love your last post!!!!