Where, oh where, does your music come from?

• Author: Webb, Tim
• Position: Special Report on Intellectual Property

As more and more users connect to the internet via faster and faster connections (such as DSL and cable modems) and internet email turns up virtually everywhere. The speed and ease with which information can flow continues to increase dramatically. So do the issues of protecting intellectual property on the internet.

Intellectual property is the property in intellectual creations and generally includes patents (granted for inventions), trade-marks (words, symbols or designs which distinguish the wares or services of one person from another), copyright (protects literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works), industrial designs (ornamentation, shape, pattern or aesthetic design applied to or associated with a manufactured article) and trade secrets (includes any confidential technical or business related information or know-how).

Intellectual property rights (IP rights) give the holder certain rights and powers to allow or prohibit others from using the intellectual property.

A popular topic related to intellectual property and the internet is the online sharing of music over the internet dating back to the days before Napster.com. Napster.com allowed its users to connect and share digital music files with each other. It was eventually shut down even though Napster.com didn't actually participate in the file sharing (it is now being re-launched as a pay service offering licensed songs for download). The current generation of file sharing systems are decentralized or distributed. This, in essence, allows users to connect to each other without going through a central server (called peer to peer or P2P networking). As the P2P service does not act as a central server, the P2P service is not a good target for a copyright infringement claim. Instead the copyright holder must go after each end user who is allegedly distributing their copyrighted works. In September of 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), representing certain copyright holders, initiated approximately 261 civil lawsuits in the United States as a first wave against users alleging unlawful sharing of digital music files. We have not seen these types of suits in Canada, but they are possible.

In the near future, the Supreme Court of Canada will consider and ultimately decide a number of key issues related to transmission of musical works by telecommunication (e.g. via the internet) in a case referred to as the Tariff 22 case. In Canada, a copyright collective...