CRIA Prefers Law Suits as a Method of Payment

Via Boing Boing: The Canadian Recording Industry Association filed papers this week to fight the application of the Copyright Board of Canada's recent decision to allow a proposed tariff on iPods to proceed. It would appear that in the case of the big American and multinational record labels that they don't actually want to get paid. They want you to download illegally so they can sue.

From Boing Boing

The Canadian Recording Industry Association (which represents multinational, US, and other non-Canadian record labels exclusively) has come out against the "private copying levy," a tax on blank media that it lobbied hard for over the past 15 years. The levy is charged against blank media, and the money raised is paid to copyright holders in exchange for the right to copy music and other works onto the media. CRIA apparently fears that the levy can be used to legalize P2P music-trading in Canada (an activity whose legality is in dispute right now), thereby breaking the P2P deadlock, decriminalizing millions of music fans, and paying millions of dollars to their members. The record industry giants would prefer to go on suing music fans and technology companies -- an activity that pays the record companies handsomely, while encouraging fans to defect from buying music in the future, and which does not pay one cent to any artist.

Still more is available from Michael Geist.