Canada on the verge of banning filesharing

Filesharing is legal in Canada, much to the chagrin of the major record labels. A musician in Canada recently wrote to tell us that new laws banning filesharing are about to be introduced. Here’s his call to arms for all Candians– pass the word.

Hello my name is Greg and I live in Hamilton ontario canada. I have been in music for quite some time now. The music industry totally ignores the indie scene really badly up here. Because of P2P technology, our stuff has been able to get across to people. Especially in the United States and Britain. Now because people hear our stuff, they buy our CD’s. Now the industry wants to shut down P2P networks because they want to control all the advertising, networking and stuff like that. Because we are a christian heavy metal band, the industry as a whole ignores us. If they get their way and try to shut down the p2p networks and/or sue people for using them, we will not be able to get the message across. If we wish to get signed by these major labels, we have to sell our faith down, meaning we preach in how they want us to preach. And that usually means a very watered down message.

I am very concerned up here because now the industry has convinced the federal government in all the major political parties to invoke two elements of the World Intellectual Property Organization treaties forcing internet providers to give the CRIA(canadian recording industry association) information in the whereabouts of p2p users so they can take them to court. This includes me. A musician’s musician but also a technologist. A p2p user using the technology to get my stuff out and to share other musician’s music.

We need to get the message across to people that the music industry is not for our benefit but for their own.