The National Post has a half-way decent article on file-sharing today.

The music industry conundrum, Copyright Board, CRIA at odds over downloading

While they blow the background material for the most part – they fail to make much of a distinction between the music “industry” and musicians and technicians, and they implicitly link music industry sales losses with downloading – it is otherwise a lucid fact-based relation of the legality of music downloading in Canada. If you’re asking yourself the question “is legally safe to d/l music in Canada now”, which lots of people seem to be asking, it’s worth reading.

Excerpts:

After watching annual sales tumble 23%, or $450-million since 1999, the music industry has finally lost its patience. The industry has spent $1-million on an educational program with little impact, so it has little choice but to follow the Recording Industry Association of America’s lead and pursue legal action.

Er, I guess improving on the spectacularly poor fair the music industry has been churning out by the truckload over the last decade isn’t considered an option then. And I suppose it’s irrelevant that most of the (admittedly weak) studies that have been done conclude that d/li’ng music and reduced music purchases aren’t linked.

Given its current mandate, the CPCC has difficult choices to make. If it raises levies to a high enough level that artists, authors, publishers and record companies and are fairly compensated for lost sales, many consumers will make blank media purchases outside Canada and a “grey” market will likely emerge to avoid the levies. This would be terrible news for retailers and blank media makers. If the levies are too low, not enough revenue will be generated to pay musicians.

That’s a good point. like most pro-downloaders, I’m a tentative advocate of compulsory licensing fees as a way to directly recompense artists without getting stuck carrying the parasticial/obsolete music industry around on our collective backs. And the long-standing but quiet Canadian system of taxing blank media is used as a test case by people around the world thinking about compulsory fees as an option. But I hadn’t thought of it that way.

For PC users aware of the Copyright Board’s decision, the gates are apparently wide open to download to your heart’s content. For the music industry, the fight is just starting to get serious.

There you have it folks. If the National Post said it, it must be true.