As the RIAA wages war on its own customers in the US, it seems that Canadians have little to worry about. Tech Central Station reports that the Canadian Copyright Act specifically allows “private copying” of music. Their solution to the problem of music theft was to institute a federally mandated tax on blank media. In the five years since the act went into effect, the music industry has collected 70 million Canadian Dollars ($51 million US) through the 77 cent CAD (56 USD) tax on blank CDs and 29 cents CAD (21 USD) per blank tape. According to the article:
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.
Update 12/12/03: A decision today underlines that Peer-to-Peer downloading is legal in Canada, but may levy a music player tax. C|Net has the story.