A new study out today suggests that the level of free (unauthorized in some circles) music downloading picked up again in May, despite attempts by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) to sue Canadian music uploaders. Of course, CRIA's day in court turned out to be an absolute nightmare. Not only did it lose on a very limited legal question, but the judge went way past that and ruled that he did not believe there was anything illegal about peer-to-peer download services.
Over here in the media, we tried to present a slightly nuanced version of the judge's ruling, namely, that while music downloaders appeared to be off the legal hook for now, the activity downloaders engage in today could bring some legal headaches tomorrow, particularly if CRIA wins on appeal or Canada's federal government modifies Canadian copyright law.
But the public, by and large, interpreted the ruling to mean: Bombs away! Trading music files is legal in Canada!
"At the end of 2003, following the much-publicized RIAA action in the U.S., the reported use of peer-to-peer services by young Canadians dropped sharply. Our research now indicates that free download activity has bounced back significantly. Free downloads are too hard to resist, despite greater awareness of intellectual property issues surrounding music," said Kaan
Yigit, who directed the study of recent downloading activity in Canada for his firm, Solutions Research Group of Toronto.
SRG found that in the spring 2004, one in two teenagers (aged 12-19) said they had downloaded music files in the month prior to being surveyed. Now that's down from spring 2003 when two-thirds of teens in Canada would have said yes.
But, as SRG, that is a higher ratio than Winter 2004 when just 40 per cent of Canadian teens said they downloaded music within that last month.
For their survey, SRG polled 1,600 Canadians in May 2004. The firm says its survey is accurate to within 2.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.