I’ve always understood that under Canadian copyright law, as long as you bought the original CD, you were allowed to rip the tracks to play on iPods and other MP3 players. I was wrong — that sort of thing breaks Canadian copyright law:
Industry Minister Tony Clement has an admission to make: He built his impressive music library on his iPod in part by breaking Canada’s copyright law.
Mr. Clement, stickhandling the copyright file for the Conservative government along with Heritage Minister James Moore, is poised to introduce new copyright legislation within days. But until the law is updated to permit Canadians to transfer music onto MP3 players from CDs they have purchased, Mr. Clement stands on the wrong side of Canada’s copyright law.
“Well you see, you know I think I have to admit it probably runs afoul of the current law because the current law does not allow you to shift formats. So the fact of the matter is I have compact discs that I’ve transferred, I have compact discs from my children or my wife that I’ve transferred onto my iPod. None of that is allowable under the current regime,” Mr. Clement, a music buff who also legally purchases songs from iTunes to build a digital database that now stands at 10,452 songs.
If the guy in charge of the relevant ministry admits that he’s breaking the law, are the media providers going to slap him with a lawsuit, claiming their traditional multi-millions per track in damages? If not, why not?
Update: Amusingly, the first piece of spam that someone attempted to post on this article said “The compilation of all content on this site is the exclusive property of WaySpa and protected by Canadian and international copyright laws.” So I guess now we know who to blame . . .
