Border Crossing

The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) announced in mid-December (Happy Holidays!) that it has decided to adopt the RIAA's peer-to-peer lawsuit strategy (efficiently summarized as "sue everybody"). This decision is striking in light of an important difference between Canadian and U.S. Copyright laws. According to Canadian law, it is clearly legal to download music files for personal use. Under American law downloading music files for personal use is generally understood to violate copyright, though important exceptions and defenses to the charge of infringement are often overlooked. Further, CRIA has already persuaded the Canadian government to add a levy to all recordable media. This surcharge has already generated at least $70 million Canadian, prompting some to argue that the works hurtling across peer-to-peer networks are bought and paid for.

Like the RIAA, CRIA intends to sue uploaders of significant numbers of music files. Within days of the CRIA announcement, the RIAA received a surprising setback in its lawsuit campaign when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Verizon (and by inference other ISPs) are not legally obligated to divulge the names and addressed of their customers simply because the RIAA alleges that copyright violations are occurring at a particular I.P. address. The practical consequence of this decision is a dramatic uptick in the cost of the RIAA's lawsuits. Without the specter of the DMCA prompting ISPs to hand over the names, ranks, and serial numbers, the RIAA will be forced to pursue this information through alternative, and relatively difficult (and costly) routes.

CRIA's public commitment to this campaign more or less obliges the Association to follow through on its threat, but one wonders how CRIA came to the determination that the RIAA's campaign had been successful. The RIAA's lawsuits may yet be understood as the final, decisive break between the American recording industry and a generation of consumers. Whatever the consequences, CRIA seems poised to produce a parallel result in Canada.