It’s a good day to be a Canadian music fan.
A coalition of Canadian music creators (that would be artists, producers, distribution companies, etc) has publicly stated that the current approach to dealing with online music sharing and copyright legislation changes do not represent their views. In fact they put forward three principles that nicely sum up their position:
- Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical
- Digital Locks are Risky and Counterproductive
- Cultural Policy Should Support Actual Canadian Artists
Check out their policy paper(PDF) for 5 pages of Canadian common sense. So I say everyone welcome the Canadian Music Creators Coalition!
In related news, that feisty law professor in Ottawa, Michael Geist, continues to point out that the emperor has no clothes:
In summary, CRIA’s own research now concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders’ computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services. I’ve argued many of these same things, but now you don’t have to take my word for it; you can take it from the record labels themselves.
I’m sick of being fed a bland mix of pablum and half-baked facts designed to make me fear digital music. Thank goodness some real facts are finally coming to the fore. Things get juicy when the polling company complains that Geist is misleading people (PDF). Geist provides a few comments on their comments too – good stuff!