The Copyright Law Of Canada Connected With An Ethical Line Within Music Sharing

The digital age has brought innumerable benefits to society throughout the past decade. Many new markets have been created, and routes for innovation have opened, but not all industries have flourished as a result of this era. Music piracy, which is the illegal act of obtaining or distributing sound recordings without the owner’s permission, is theorized to be the ultimate downfall of the music industry. CD sales have plummeted and caused the music moguls to panic, but their worriedness might be narrow sighted. Through speculative research, it can be surmised that the act of piracy can positively influence a musician’s career, allow for new opportunities and niches in the market, and have little side effects to anyone else in the business.

Over the past fifty years, the British Music Publishing industry has undergone dramatic changes. It has evolved as an entity with innovations in technology, changes and creations of laws and new mediums to promote and exploit songs to a wider audience. Therefore, the way in which the music publishing industry operates and exploits its assets has completely transformed, and continues to do so at a rapid pace. This paper will attempt to explore the ways in which publishers exploit song copyrights and the way in which this has changed over the past 60 years. It is important to define what is meant by copyright and its role within the industry. The Performing Right Society website states: “Copyright

RIP: A Remix Manifesto offers a convincing case for copyright reform raising the issues about the viscous control on the ownership of intellectual property against the free access to share ideas. Gaylor (2008) is passionate about the ridiculous copyright laws and their ongoing restrictive modifications in the USA that are demolishing the creativity of new ideas and innovations that these copyright laws were originally meant to protect. Gaylor (2008) uses his favourite artist ‘Girl Talk’ who samples and remixes music, to centre his documentary in an effort to defend the public domain and its ability to share free idea, along with the use of the remixer’s manifesto- Number 1. Culture always builds on the past. Number 2. The past always tries to control the future. Number 3. Our future is becoming less free. Number 4. To build free societies you must limit the control of the past. The first point made in the remixers’ manifesto involves Gaylor (2008) exploring the history of artists who have used the creativity of the past for the inspiration of their new idea; including Walt Disney and Metallica- who has borrowed previously made song structures from musicians- both have now become harsh advocates for the current copyright laws. In keeping with Gaylor’s (2008) style, the remaining remix manifesto points will become a guideline for the remaining essay along with the issues and case study that will be represented on the poster.

Authors and publishers believe that the book industry will disintegrate through the implementation of a “fair use” system on copyright material. Authors, publishers and booksellers instigate that if recommendations for “fair use” were enacted, there would be negative ramifications on Australia’s creative content and will discourage local investment. In the Sydney Morning Herald’s article “Writers and publishers voice opposition to new copyright proposals”, Steger (2016) states ‘removal of restrictions will cut prices and accelerate supply. The so-called "fair use" system allows use of some material without payment to copyright holders’. Steger (2016) emphasises that the implementation of a copyright reform to adopt the US system of “fair use” would promote a potential fall in jobs in the sector and discourage investment. Steger (2016) also goes on to highlight the economic instability Australia’s creative content may face, instigating that a ‘fair use’ system would “destabilise an industry that contributes $7.4 billion to the Australian economy” (Appendix 2).

Ethical issues today have come so far as to debate the rights of artists, specifically, musicians. From a simple download to a few regrets on behalf entire first world countries, this affects many because nearly everyone has downloaded illegally once or twice… or a few thousand times. “Letter to Emily” is a written response to illegal downloading of music and how Emily should feel guilty over something that can ultimately change the life of another.

Emily Toronto is the director of opera, and associate professor of music at South Dakota State University. She has received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Michigan University, and has performed in a multitude of different opera groups. The fact that she is a musician gives her a unique perspective on the topic of copyright. Stephen G. Wood is a law professor at Brigham Young University, and has served as a consultant to the US Department of Labor, and Administrative Conference for the United States. Toronto and Wood begin this publication by explaining why copyright is needed, then continue on to show examples of copyright reforms. They finish by informing music teachers what they can do to encourage copyright reform. This paper argues

In the article “Internet Piracy Harms Artists”, Phil Gardson explains how internet piracy such as online music sharing and other forms of copyrighting music hurts hardworking singers and songwriters. He also asserts that it is imperative that Congress should in act a law against these types of crimes to help protect artists.

Digital piracy on music has been a majorly disputed affair for the last eighteen years, about whether or not it favors the musical artists or affects them in a negative fashion. One of the many sides of the Digital piracy controversy expounds that it benefits the artist(s) by giving them a great deal of exposure that they may not have received had they not downloaded it for free, which in turn makes for a very significant acquisition in terms of sales on their part.

The music industry has undergone radical changes since the end of the 1990’s, largely a function of the internet and its effects on sales and copyright. Besides placing artists and their music on the world stage, the internet also permitted the downloading of music from free-file- exchange networks. A parallel and equally worrisome, phenomenon is record pirating, a practice made easier by the proliferation of CD burners and access to high speed internet. Unauthorized downloading and pirating circumvent intellectual property laws and result in reduced sales. “In Atlantic Canada, average annual household expenditures on CDs and audio cassettes dropped by 27 percent between 1996 and 2001, from $96.00 to $70.00.”

As sound recording is intangible, it is hard to use in the same way as a tangible item such as a novel, when managing regulations and privacy concerns. There have been a variety of issues to determine who actually owns the sound that has been created. It could be the artist, producer, or a sound engineer who has worked on that particular sound. By illegally downloading or sharing a sound recording, an individual is harming the original creator. Video recordings with sound are greatly present in concerts and different musical events. This process is not regulated, however the recording may only be used for personal usage and not aimed towards creating a profit, which on the other hand is illegal. The result can be seen within Alex Cummings book titled “Democracy of Sound”. Cummings argues “Such moral convictions may help to explain the hard shift toward stronger copyright laws in America during the last four years” (Cummings 2). As mentioned earlier, personalized usage of such recordings is acceptable, but distribution of the material is not. The Canadian government has defined sound recording as “musical work” and it states, “musical work means any work of music or musical composition, with or without words, and includes any compilation thereof” (Copyright Act). “Copyright, which recognizes and protects artists’ creations as ‘intellectual property’, will be a

The question then became “Just because we can get the music we want without paying for it, should we?” (Tyson, 2000, p.1). This issue of illegal downloads, which is also referred to as piracy, has been a hot topic ever since the introduction of Napster. According to Recording Industry Association of America “In the decade since peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion” (RIAA, 2014).

We all know that downloading pirated music and films is illegal, but what exactly is it? The term piracy refers to the copying and selling of music, films and other media illegally; in other words you are copying and selling copyrighted media without the permission of the original owner (NiDirect, n.d.). With the massive growth of the internet and its ability to store and capture vast amounts of data, we have become much more reliable on information systems in all aspects of life, but it does not come without the risk of information technology being used unethically. With the number of IT breakthroughs in recent years “the importance of ethics and human values has been underemphasised” often resulting in various consequences. Not surprisingly one of the many public concerns about the ethical use of IT is that “millions of people have downloaded music and movies at no charge and in apparent violation of copyright laws at tremendous expense to the owners of those copyrights” (Reynolds, Ethics in Information Technology, 2015). This essay covers the ethical issues of downloading pirated music and films and the impact it has on music corporations and recording and film companies.

Nowadays, teenagers are living constantly surrounded by technology. Even if the younger generation may not see it, technology has had an impact on different factors. The widespread use of digital technology in the music industry has allowed consumers to reproduce digital versions of copyrighted songs inexpensively, with the help of many software and websites. There has been an increase in digital copying activities and those are most of the time claimed responsible for producers’ loss in revenues. While some people claim that the increase of digital technology has killed the music industry, in fact it has lead to innovation and new ways of consuming and sharing music, such as

Introduction: Setting the trend for the future, the distribution and consumption of recorded music transformed dramatically with the launching of Apple’s iTunes in 2001. The proliferation of online music subscription services and other music sharing services exerted a great pressure on the conventional music distribution business model. Combined with this transformation, piracy of digital music had a profound impact on the whole industry. These worsening conditions in the market place for recorded music forced both established and upcoming new artists to experiment with new ways of selling their music.

Companies like Apple, have decided that it is best to get in with the downloading business. However, an end to the illegal downloading conflict remains to be realized. The RIAA and associated artists continue to wage war against illegal downloaders while computer savvy audiences persist in sharing music files online every day. While it is undoubtedly true that downloading music is a crime, it remains to be proven that it is wrong. Without establishing this principle, most downloader's are likely to continue the activity. Even with new, inexpensive and available means of downloading files, they can still be shared for free online. The rift must be repaired between music lovers who feel that they have been taken advantage of in the past and recording companies and artists who worry about their future livelihood.