I got one thing to say to the RIAA…Piss off! And take your sister branch the CIRA with you. As some of you probably already know downloading music in Canada was all but legal under the so called guidelines you weren’t sharing files (uploading them in return). While being part of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Canada was ultimately going to change its copyright laws at some point but we have had the privilege of the government taking its time to rework the copyright law. Unfortunately the law will come to pass and for all you regular limewire users the fear of getting subpoena’s for $200,000 dollars or having your whole financial career ruined for downloading 20 (or less) songs will soon be more then real.

It truly will be a sad sad day when this comes to pass as it just goes to show our Canadian Government is yet again succumbing to a greedy corporation. To my understanding the downloading aspect of the law isn’t going to be the worst part. Picture this, you have just bought a brand new CD or DVD and like a lot of other people feel the need to backup your purchase (because we all know how terrible the durability is of those products) when moments later the police come storming in and arrest you. For what? Well if everything goes to fruition making backups of legitimate purchases will also be illegal. Absurd isn’t it?

The funny part about this whole situation is the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, whose members include such artists as Sarah McLachlan, Sam Roberts and Avril Lavigne, are hoping the Canadian Government rethinks its policies as they would rather not see there fans have to face lawsuit after lawsuit. The CMCC says it would like to see legislation that recognizes the importance of file-sharing as a way to spread the word about Canadian music instead of destroy it.

Regardless of how much influence the CMCC provides this law will come to pass and the ones who will ultimately pay are the users who very rarely fire up limewire because they don’t know any better or have anyway to protect themselves.

Thankfully at this rate the RIAA is dieing and with artists becoming more and more independent on record sales its only a matter of time before they quietly fade into the sunset. Musicians are becoming smarter and they know the RIAA is after there rightfully earned cash. We have seen some incredible revelations the past couple years on how to handle this whole situation and I think Radiohead probably handled it the best, the pay-what-you-want sales approach to there album entitled “In Rainbows” has been absolutely brilliant. Hell even the ITunes model is more feasible. At least you pay a small fee per song as opposed to $20 for a CD that usually has that one good song with the rest being full of crap. Who can justify spending $20 when you can pay $1 or even $5 for that same entire CD.

The RIAA needs to face the facts that there current system no longer works. The harder they try to police the people the more likely the people are going to revolt. We’ve seen the last couple years that when you shut something down it only springs twice as many more to open (Napster, Kazaa, Limewire, Shareaza etc etc). They may win a couple settlements here and there but they are dieing a slow death with there refusal to join the digital age. The sooner they realize the future is in our online culture the better chance they have at surviving, but I, like a lot of other people are hoping they continue there same approach because sooner or later they will become extinct and there entire corporation will look like nothing more then the 8-Track.

Walks
www.hotstickybun.com