Musical ride

Today it's legal to email Beatles beats to your friends, but soon it could be criminal to copy them to your MP3 player.

The deciding factor is digital locks. Many songs for purchase online and on CDs are equipped with digital locks. A Conservative-sponsored bill with the backing of the big record labels would make it illegal to break them.

Online file-sharers aren't compensating artists and record labels.

Already, some Canadians have seen the dark side of digital locks. David Fewer, who directs a legal clinic for copyright at the University of Ottawa, lost a lot of his music collection because of them. When his computer broke, he replaced it and transferred his old computer's files. He managed to save his documents but the music files he'd purchased from an American website wouldn't open because they were locked.

“So I can't play lots of music that I'd acquired,” he says. “That's the deal.”

He could have run software to break the locks and convert his songs to MP3 format. Had he done that, he would have been able to salvage them.

Now Bill C-32, an amendment to copyright law, is being debated in parliament. If it passes as drafted, no Canadian will be allowed to break the locks that broke Fewer's music collection.

So I can't play lots of music that I'd acquired. — David FewerIt would be illegal to copy songs from a compact disc, DVD or downloaded music library if the publisher fits the song with protection. Examples of locks in use today include encryption on music files, physical defects on compact discs and ciphers on DVDs. Hackers can break all of these locks.

Opponents of the bill say Canada already has a better way of compensating artists: levies. Today there's a levy in the price of every recordable compact disc. When somebody copies a song for private use, it's legal because the artist was compensated through the levy.

It's currently legal to copy music to recordable CDs. Artists get compensated from a levy customers pay when they buy blank CDs.

In a 2004 case in the Federal Court of Appeal, judges ruled that the levy shouldn't be extended to MP3 players — but that doesn't mean it's illegal to copy songs for private use, Fewer says.

Today millions of Canadians copy music to their MP3 players and computers. Artists aren't being compensated. Digital locks legislation could make it illegal to copy some music. Levies would hike computer prices, penalizing Canadians who don't download songs.

For Fewer, a levy would better. He doesn't want the law to lock him out of another music collection, and he says Bill C-32 would prevent him from doing sensible things like making backups.

“How we have used content has changed so fast that ordinary, reasonable consumer practices infringe copyright all the time,” he says.

Sharing custody of songs

Are you legal?

David Fewer is a University of Ottawa law professor. He directs the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, which tries to explain to Canadians what they can copy and how.

Currently, copyright legislation is so murky even lawyers aren't sure what's allowed and what isn't.  The courts haven't heard many copyright disputes, Fewer says, because record labels are waiting for clear legislation before suing anybody for infringement.

But after carefully reading Canada's laws, Fewer explains to his clinic's clients what they can and can't do when copying everything from tunes to textbooks.

How much do you know about Canadian law? Click on the arrows and try to guess what acts are legal and which ones aren't.

Disclaimer: these laws only apply to songs, not movies, books or video games.