Restrictive Copyright Legislation Panders To Carefully Cultivated MusicBiz Myths

Writing in the Globe and Mail, Dwayne Winseck, a communications professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University in Ottawa, notes that for more than a decade, the music industry worldwide has gone to great pains to portray itself as being in dire straights unless copyright laws are tailored to combating illegal downloading, and reports that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), backed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI), is lobbying the Canadian government agressively to impose draconian music copyright restrictions.

However, Winseck observes that the carefully cultivated image of a beleaguered music industry under siege by downloaders is seriously flawed, and notes that big MusicBiz is doing just fine in three fastest growing segments of the business: concerts, Internet and mobile phones and publishing rights, in fact not in decline, and actually has grown in Canada from roughly $1.26-billion in 1998 to just over $1.4-billion today, while worldwide, growth has been even more impressive, and summarizing that only when the myth that the music industry is in peril, and that it is the canary in the coalshaft for all media, is discarded will we get copyright laws fit for these digital times.

You can read Prof. Winseck’s superb analysis of the issue here:
http://bit.ly/kjdd8C