Canadian Recording Industry Association

The Canadian Recording Industry Association is a non-profit trade organization that was founded in 1964 to represent the interests of Canadian companies that create, manufacture and market sound recordings in Canada. The organization is based in Toronto. [cite web | url = http://www.cria.ca/about.php | title = About CRIA | publisher = CRIA | author = Graham Henderson | accessdate = 2007-11-19 ]

CRIA is governed by a board of directors who are elected annually by CRIA members. To be eligible for election a candidate for the board must be among the chief executive officers of member companies of the organization. Graham Henderson (Universal Music Canada) is the current president of the CRIA.

Representation

Currently CRIA is undergoing somewhat of a crisis of integrity of whom they represent. Several smaller but more domestically representative labels (such as Nettwerk) have publicly disagreed with CRIA and claim it no longer represents them - only large American franchise labels. This controversy includes recent hard line stance against copying levies and legal threats to BitTorrent websites - aggressive and extreme positions to take regarding filesharing. [cite web | url = http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1154 | title = CRIA Falling Apart | publisher = Slyck News | author = Drew Wilson | date = 2006-04-16 | accessdate = 2007-11-16 ]

Legal actions

On February 16, 2004, the CRIA applied to the Federal Court to force five major Canadian internet service providers — Shaw Communications Inc., Telus Corp., Rogers Cable, Bell Canada's Sympatico service and Quebec's Vidéotron — to hand over the names of 29 people accused of illegal filesharing. Only Vidéotron was willing to supply customer information to the CRIA. [cite web | url = http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2005/04/2208.cfm | title = Canadian File Sharing Lawsuits Moving Ahead, Vidéotron To Reveal Names | publisher = ChartAttack.com | author = ChartAttack.com Staff | date = 2005-04-22 | accessdate = 2007-12-05 ]

On March 31, 2004, in the case of "BMG v. John Doe", Justice Konrad von Finckenstein of the Federal Court of Canada ruled that making music available for download over the Internet was not equivalent to distribution and was thus noninfringing. The Justice compared the file trading activities to "having a photocopier in a library room full of copyrighted material" and wrote that there was no evidence of unauthorized distribution presented. [cite court |litigants = BMG Canada Inc. v. John Doe |opinion = 488 |court = F.C. |reporter = FC|date = 2004 |url= http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2004/2004fc488/2004fc488.html ] The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the lower courts ruling denying the disclosure of the customers' identities, but, in reference to "what would or would not constitute infringement of copyright," stated: "such conclusions should not have been made in the very preliminary stages of this action, since they would require a consideration of the evidence as well as the law applicable to such evidence after it has been properly adduced, and could be damaging to the parties if a trial takes place." [cite court| litigants = BMG Canada Inc. v. John Doe |opinion = 193 |court =F.C.A |date = 2005 |reporter=FCA | url=http://reports.fja.gc.ca/en/2005/2005fca193/2005fca193.html]

The Copyright Board of Canada earlier that year had included downloading music in the list of "private copying" activities for which tariffs on blank media applied. (Private copying is the act of copying music for personal use from a noninfringing source, and is itself noninfringing.) That made it extremely unlikely that downloaders could be successfully prosecuted, leaving only the possibility of acting against uploaders, those supplying the works to others on the networks. Fact|date=November 2007

The CRIA has also threatened legal action on other occasions. For instance, on September 27, 2007, the CRIA sent a letter to Demonoid threatening legal action (copyright infringement),Fact|date=November 2007 despite the fact that Demonoid does not host copyrighted material - merely torrents facilitating the downloading of copyrighted materials.

Demonoid shutdown

On November 08, 2007, the CRIA forced the closing of Demonoid by threatening the company from whom they are renting their servers.The site was left as a blank page with a short statement written on it:

"The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding."

However, the decision to take down servers is ultimately up to either Demonoid or the ISPs, as no legal order has been given.

As a reaction to the recent take-down of Demonoid by the CRIA, a few Canadians have banded together to form an organization called "Stop The CRIA" as an attempt to raise awareness of the situation and to help companies threatened by the CRIA to defend themselves in court.

Lawsuit against the CRIA

On September 8th, Gary Fung, President of Isohunt Web Technologies Inc. or 'isoHunt' announced on the [http://isohunt.com Isohunt front page] that he had made a preemptive move against an impending lawsuit from the CRIA by filing a petition to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. isoHunt argues that it is merely a search engine to find torrents that are scattered around the web, much the same as Google or any other search engine can be used in the same way.

Gary Fung's affidavit can be viewed [http://isohunt.com/img/legal/Affidavit%20of%20Gary%20Fung%20No.1.pdf here]

The Petition to the Supreme Court of British Columbia can be viewed [http://isohunt.com/img/legal/Petition%20to%20the%20Court.pdf here]

Album certifications

The CRIA certifications for albums are:
*50,000 units: Gold
*100,000 units: Platinum
*1,000,000 units: Diamond [cite web | url = http://www.cria.ca/cert.php | title = Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA): Certification Definitions | publisher = CRIA | author = CRIA | accessdate = 2008-06-22 ]

Note: Multi-Platinum refers to how many times the album has reached 100,000 units sold.

ee also

* Canadian Private Copying Collective
* RIAA

External links

* [http://www.cria.ca/ Canadian Recording Industry Association Website]
* [http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/04/01/403775.html London Free Press article on the decision]
* [http://www.fct-cf.gc.ca/bulletins/whatsnew/T-292-04.pdf Full text of the decision (PDF)]
* [http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/09/05/CRIA_reax20050905.html CBC: CRIA wants tougher internet piracy law in Canada]
* [http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1154 CRIA Falling Apart]
* [http://www.demonoid.com Demonoid]

References