Canadian Copyright Board Says P2P Downloads Are Legal

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

16 December 2003

The Copyright Board of Canada on Saturday announced that the downloading of copyrighted material from peer-to-peer music networks is not illegal, in a marked departure from the prevailing international attitudes with regard to this practice.

However, it also announced that the uploading of music files to such services will be considered an illegal act.

In its statement of levies to be collected by the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) on the sale, in Canada, of blank audio recording media for the years 2003 and 2004, the Copyright Board announced that it will be imposing a tariffs on MP3 players such as Apple's iPod, the revenue from which will be used to compensate musicians and songwriters for lost earnings as a result of copying.

The tariffs are to be imposed on a sliding scale, according to the memory capacity of the player in question.

The CBC also revealed that the existing levies on other recording media such as tapes, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and MiniDiscs will remain at the same levels until the end of 2004.

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