Last night you went to see your DJ boyfriend’s opening set for some band you’d heard or read about somewhere. And they blew your socks off. But their CDs were twenty bucks at the show and when you opened your wallet, it contained only a dusty cough and a couple of stray moths. Crestfallen yet resolved, you went home, found the torrent of the album, and just got it for free.
Is this stealing? You heard from your friend (who has an external hard drive’ s worth of pirated music) that in Canada, it’s not stealing; it’s technically making a “backup” copy for your own use. He tells you that this is the reason why blank CDs cost more than blank DVDs (it’s a levy that offsets lost revenue to the music industry!). So no worry, right? Plus, you already paid to see that band’s live set last night, so even if it is stealing, you’ve given them something.
But Canadian copyright law isn’t quite so simple. Let’s look at the example of the CD levies. According to the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) website, the extra few cents (twenty-nine cents, to be exact) on such products as blank CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and Minidiscs (Mini-whats?) are mandated by the Private Copying Tariff 2010, which came into effect January of this year (the Tariff is updated as new technology becomes available). This tariff has been around since 1997, and was lobbied for by the music industry in Canada as a way to provide monetary compensation to artists and record companies whose music was being “taped” (or burned onto CDs) instead of purchased. And when mp3 players burst onto the music scene a few years ago, the CPCC moved to quickly issue a levy on iPods, cellphones, and anything else that was capable of storing and playing digital music files (technically speaking though, it is only the memory inside the iPod that warrants a levy).
So yes, burning a copy of your friend’s CD was allowed under the Copyright Act, though burning copies of your own CDs to give to others was technically a violation (you can make personal backup copies of music in your possession but cannot make copies for others). But here’s the kicker: this provision does NOT extend to digital music files. Even though you paid a levy on your iPod Touch, you are not legally entitled to download music for free. The Canadian Courts are slow to extend this exempt status to digitally-obtained music.
The final answer to the question of whether you are stealing when you get a torrent without paying for it? Yup. Under Canadian copyright law, you are breaking the law.
Free On Campus is a site dedicated to finding freebies and great deals around the campus and community. The caveat is that these freebies are offered as such. When it comes to issues of copyright violation, legal grey areas, and unquestioned sources of free products, Free On Campus will leave the decision up to its readers. The ethics of torrented music are beyond the scope of this blog, but, technically speaking, the “illegal” part of “illegal downloading” isn’t just a sexy adjective.
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