Canadians still love to pirate music and videos: report – National | globalnews.ca

I admit it: If you look through the files on my computer, you’ll find songs I’ve downloaded from Napster and other illegal file-sharing sites. At the time – for me it was 2001-2003 – illegally downloading songs was seen as an unwise, even harmless one. How can a few downloaded tracks bother a multi-national record label or a few millionaire rock stars?

This attitude was totally, totally wrong, of course, and by the time I woke up to this reality, the recorded music industry was in a downward spiral. Fast. CD sales had begun to drop and it became clear that piracy was one of the big contributing factors.

My pirated ways were killed forever by iTunes. It was much easier to pay 99 cents/$1.29 for a high-quality audio file than to tolerate terrible sounding, often incomplete, sometimes virus-ridden MP3s downloaded from god knows where. Who wanted the hassle of finding torrent and seeding sites with new content?

Then there was the issue of metadata, making sure the songs were labeled correctly. Often, a torrent will have the wrong song title, misspelled the artist name, or won’t include all the required tags. After that you have to organize the songs in your library somehow. Besides being wrong and unethical, music piracy took a lot of work.

I’ve collected thousands of legal digital downloads since then. As I write this, iTunes tells me that I have 79,640 items (564.5 gigs) in my library. Of course not everyone gets paid for downloads. there are many, several CD rips along with other audio like interviews as well as links to my work A running history of new music.

When streaming started in Canada around 2010, most believed it would be the end of music piracy. Why would you bother stealing something when you can: (a) pay a modest monthly fee and have all the music you could possibly want; and (b) sign up for the free tier on Spotify and pay nothing for all the music in the universe, for the price of listening to a few ads?

Conquered theft. Except it wasn’t. And Canadians are still stealing stuff.

According to Most recent report from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a group that represents the interests of not only the recorded music industry, but TV, movies, videogame publishers, and more, We Are Canadian Thieves. At 241 pages, it is a long report, but it can be summed up in this statement: “The magnitude of the problem of piracy in Canada is almost impossible to overstate.”

Drawing from information from a report by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (which administers, among other things, all .ca domains), Canadians are the worst when it comes to stealing US copyrighted works . We already watch a lot of TV and movies and listen to a lot of music, but reports argue that the real number is higher due to people consuming pirated content.

I quote: “Evidence persists, however, that the digital market for copyrighted material in Canada faces challenges in realizing its full potential due to competition from illegal online sources. In 2022, 22.4% of Canadians % of people used pirated services.

About a quarter of us? Very good.

Obviously, we’re doing a lot of stream-ripping. This includes using software to record streams of YouTube videos or songs streamed from Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, or any other DSP (Digital Streaming Provider). “Dozens of websites, software programs and apps offering stream-ripping services find an eager market in Canada,” the report said.

It continues: “Use of peer-to-peer (P2P) sites remains high, with BitTorrent indexing sites including Rarbug, The Pirate Bay and 1337x popular in Canada. CyberLocker sites such as Mega, Uptobox, GoFile and Rapidgator are also illegal. are a common way to access recorded music.

Music piracy is a big issue, but most of the action happens in video piracy. The report states that we are “actively involved” in all the different ways that we can achieve digital locks and technical security measures.

Pirated IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) services – sometimes seen advertised on light poles at intersections – have a lot of customers. And chances are you know someone who knows someone who can fix you up with more free TV than a special set-top box. Just google “iptv canada” and see what comes up. I have also seen these boxes for sale in retail stores.

More from the report: “By mimicking the look and feel of legitimate streaming services, infringing streaming websites are overtaking P2P sites as the most popular destination for Canadians seeking premium content in both English and French. … Canadian piracy operators continue to be involved in the coding and development of infringing add-ons and Android application packages (APKs) that enable subscription piracy services and mass-market [set-top boxes] To access streaming services without authorization.

“Some resources are devoted to prosecutions of piracy cases; Prosecutors typically lack specialized training to prosecute such crimes, and they often dismiss or procrastinate cases, resulting in dilatory punishments.”

So what is being done? The IIPA believes the RCMP is too busy to investigate the situation. Local police forces also have a full hand with day-to-day policing. There are a few cracks here and there, but nothing to really dent the pirate market. The IIPA is seeking more federal funding to fight piracy, creating special groups to go after illegal IPTV sites/vendors, and encouraging Canadian authorities to work closely with their American counterparts. Used to be.

And you thought Canadians were so nice and law abiding.

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allen cross Q107 is the broadcaster of 102.1 The Edge and is a commentator for Global News.

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