Criminal Law / Federal Law
Illegal download of music or videos is a criminal offence.
Copyright law protects the value of creative work.
When you make illegal copies of someone’s creative work, you are stealing and breaking the law.
The FBI warning on a movie DVD or VHS cassette applies, with equal force, to music. If you have been illegally reproducing or distributing copyrighted music that is a crime.
Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, rental or digital transmission of copyrighted sound recordings. (Title 17, United States Code, Sections 501 and 506). The FBI investigates allegations of criminal copyright infringement and violators will be prosecuted. (WWW.MUSICUNITED.ORG ). WWW.MUSICUNITED.ORG. (). The Law . Retrieved March 30, 2008, from http://www.musicunited.org/2_thelaw.html
In Canada, downloading copyright music from peer-to-peer networks is legal, but uploading those files is not. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the Canadian Private Copying Collective cannot apply a levy on digital music players. The $4M collected to date must be paid back to the device manufacturers and importers. The Supreme Court upheld the Federal Court of Appeal's decision to quash CPCC levy on I-Pods and other MP3 players and other similar digital music devices which was initially approved by the Canadian Copyright Board. The Supreme Court has refused to hear further arguments regarding a levy and confirmed that that the Copyright Board was ultra vireos its authority when it applied the private copying levy to digital audio recorders, and that the levy was an unconstitutional tax. The levy was collected on the basis that individuals ordinarily use these devices to make copies of recorded music for personal use.
The Canadian Private Copying Collective, a non-profit agency that collects tariffs on behalf of musical artists and record companies, had been pursuing the appeal and has said...