CBC, Copyright and Candy Bars

CBC Radio 3 did a show on the Conservative Copyright Bill today. You can read the comments here at that link you can also listen to an interview with Jeremy de Beer (University of Ottawa Law Professor). You'll be happy to know that 94% of respondents to Radio 3 oppose the bill, though the vast majority also said they bought alot of music and believed in supporting artists.

One of my personal comments to the blog was mentioned on the air, but misunderstood. I pointed out that according to the Toronto Star:

"In 2007 more than 750,000 albums were released worldwide (by mostly independent artists via the Internet), compared to 38,000 in 2002."

That means that almost 20x the number of (different) CDs were produced in 2007 as in 2002 and I made the following analogy.

"Now let's say you have the only store in town that sells candy bars and, even though you have some problems with shoplifters, you sell 100% of the candy bars sold in town.

5 Years later there are 20 stores selling candy bars (roughly the same as 38,000 compeared to 75,000) - chances are you are selling substantially less than 100% of the Candy Bars. But since you can't think of a way to force the other 19 stores to stop selling candy bars you go after the shoplifters with a vengaence - trying to recoup all of the money you lost from them (even though they are not really the problem). "

In 2008 comsumers have 20 times the choice that they did in 2002. Even though the major labels are producing fewer CDs every year small labels and independent artists are producing far, far more. So I would hold that it is not downloading that is killing the 'music industry' - by which I mean the huge mega labels. It is simply that their share of the market is declining every year. For example, sales of Canadian music in Canada are exploding - for most of the 2000s Canada has enjoyed what I believe is the most diverse, vibrant and talented music scene on the planet. This is a sharp contrast to a few decades ago when most of the music purchased in Canada came from the U.S. or U.K. In fact many independent Canadian acts are selling well around the world. Does anyone really imagine that the big labels (who have few Canadian acts on their rosters) don't feel that?

File sharing, after all, has been around for decades (at least since the invention of the cassette tape). It was only with the creation of inexpensive recording technology, technology that allowed virtually anyone who wanted to, to record their own music that the big labels started to falter.

But they can't come up with a way to convince the government to stop independent artists and small labels from producing music, so instead they are going after the fans - trying to 'recoup' money that they lost - not to downloading but to an inability to compete in an open market.

Speaking of Radio 3, check out Gravity Wave on this week's Radio 3 "School of Rock" podcast. (Don't worry, it's still safe - you won't get arrested.)