Viewing cable 06MONTREAL436, IPR in Montreal Part 2 - Music Fans and Industry

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R 111807Z APR 06
FM AMCONSUL MONTREAL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9584
INFO RUCNCAN/ALCAN COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MONTREAL 000436 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SECSTATE FOR WHA/CAN, WHA/PD, DS/IP/WHA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON ETRD KIPR CA
SUBJECT: IPR in Montreal Part 2 - Music Fans and Industry 
Stakeholders Take IPR Into Their Own Hands 
 
Ref: A Montreal 365, B Ottawa 406, C 05 Ottawa 
2970 
 
This message is Sensitive but Unclassified 
 
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Summary 
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¶1. (U) The strength and popularity of Quebec's music and 
film industries have made them attractive targets for 
illegal file sharing and pirating. Quebec music and films 
are routinely pirated and sold at Montreal-area flea 
markets along with internationally recognized music and 
films. Although later overturned on appeal, a March 2004 
ruling by a Federal judge that peer-to-peer file sharing 
was legal posed a major setback for IPR proponents. That 
decision, although now in limbo, legitimized file sharing 
in the minds of many Canadian consumers and encouraged the 
C$1.6 billion in illegal music downloads that occur in 
Canada each year. Recognizing that potential music 
consumers often do not fear legal repercussions from their 
downloading, the Quebec music industry and fans have begun 
taking IPR enforcement into their own hands. The 
Association Quebecois de l'Industrie du Disque, du 
Spectacle, et de la Video (ADISQ) has started campaigns to 
make consumers aware of the detrimental impacts of file- 
sharing on the local music industry. In September 2005, 
the Quebec National Library stopped offering its patrons 
the chance to burn copies of its CDs in response to 
negative press coverage and pressure from ADISQ. While 
these are encouraging steps, the continued popularity of 
file-sharing and lack of legal remedy mean that IPR 
violations in the Quebec music industry are not a temporary 
trend. 
 
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Fans / Local Industry Respond to IPR violations 
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¶2. (U) Quebec has its own French-language music industry 
complete with music awards shows and eight entertainment 
magazines. With local Quebec musicians monopolizing some 
38% of all CD sales and with more than half of the twenty 
largest musical successes between 2002 and 2004 considered 
"local creations," IPR issues have taken on a new level of 
importance for Montreal's recording industry and music 
fans. Quebec music CDs, like its films (Reftel A), are 
being copied and sold at local venues, such as Montreal- 
area flea markets, just like big-label music artists. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Because the protection of IPR falls to the 
federal Department of Industry and Department of Canadian 
Heritage, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) alone 
has the authority in Quebec to go after IPR violators. The 
RCMP has focused its energy on IPR violators who are using 
their profits to finance terrorist activities, pirating 
operations that are run by organized crime outfits, and 
"large-scale, commercial operations." An RCMP officer in 
Montreal admitted the RCMP is not as intent on targeting 
"mom and pop" establishments and "does not have the 
resources to go after everyone" alleged to be involved in 
the sale of pirated goods. Consequently, some private 
sector groups have filed civil charges against pirated disk 
producers. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Pride in, and loyalty to, local artists led some 
music fans to alert their favorite musical groups when they 
found illegally copied versions of the Quebec artists' 
music for sale at Montreal-area flea markets. Fan emails 
prompted musicians to get in touch with ADISQ, the 
professional association that represents independent Quebec 
music artists and assists such artists in selling their 
products to international markets. As a result, ADISQ 
started a civil procedure to gain the authority to seize 
all pirated disks for sale at flea markets in Quebec for a 
period of one year. Getting the rights to seize pirated 
materials was, according to a member of ADISQ, "not 
complicated, but required proof" of the presence of pirated 
discs. In August 2005, ADISQ sent representatives out to 
the flea markets in question "dressed in t-shirts and 
jeans," to gather evidence of the pirated disks being sold 
(for an average price of C$4) and query vendors. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Based on the proof that ADISQ's members collected, 
four people were arrested and eventually found guilty by a 
November 2005 civil procedure. The judge fined the four 
guilty parties C$200,000 in total. According to an 
 
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employee of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors 
Association (CMPDA), some of the same individuals who had 
been implicated in the sale of these pirated CDs had also 
been selling pirated Quebec films at the same flea markets. 
The sale of pirated DVDs and CDs at Montreal-area flea 
markets stopped directly after the judge's decision to 
impose the fine on the four suspects. However, the CMPDA 
representative said that pirates of local films and music, 
while currently "scared" by the civil verdict, will 
gradually regain the courage to sell their wares in flea 
markets. "They'll be back. Just wait until the spring." 
Press coverage of the court's decision increased public 
awareness in Quebec of the presence of pirated goods; 
articles also mentioned that the sale of pirated CDs harms 
not only music vendors, but also the artist themselves. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Quebec's music industry loses money each year to 
the sale of pirated disks as well as from peer-to-peer file 
sharing. The black market nature of the pirated CD sale 
industry and the difficulty of translating peer-to-peer 
downloads into potential CD sales make it difficult to 
calculate monetary losses from music piracy in Quebec. One 
estimate by ADISQ calculated the number of pirated disks 
for sale at flea markets in the province (prior to the 
seizure of CDs and the court's decision) at C$750,000 and 
the monetary value of lost CD sales in the millions of 
dollars. 
 
¶7. (U) CDs from local artists are typically as expensive 
if not more expensive, than CDs from major-label artists, 
but this has not stopped the local music industry from 
developing and protecting its interests in Quebec. Since 
2004, ADISQ has financed an annual promotional campaign in 
February to alert consumers to the damage inflicted by 
file-sharing and piracy on the music industry and to 
encourage music lovers to purchase CDs. In February 2006, 
for example, people who purchased a CD from a Quebec artist 
received a gift bag inscribed with the phrase (in French) 
"for those who love music, say no to copying." The first 
such promotion in 2004 coincided with an increase of 30.4% 
in the sales of local artists' CDs over the same period in 
¶2003. This increased level of sales has continued with the 
program in 2005 and 2006. 
 
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Library a magnet for disk burners 
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¶8. (SBU) Another battle over file sharing and disk burning 
raged last August at the Grande Bibliothque National (the 
Quebec National Library), located in downtown Montreal. 
Press reports that the Library offered access to 
audiovisual materials only steps away from computers with 
disk-burning software offered a sharp contrast to 
simultaneous stories about ADISQ's efforts to combat music 
piracy. While ADISQ was urging music lovers to purchase 
CDs to support local stores and avoid copying and file- 
sharing, many Quebeckers were taking advantage of the 
Quebec National Library's extensive music library and free 
disk burning software. The library's 90,000 audiovisual 
materials represent one third of all its loans and are one 
of the biggest attractions of the state-of-the art facility 
(that opened in Spring 2005). The library's computers 
afforded the library's patrons the opportunity to burn 
their own copies of CDs without ever removing them from the 
library. The Library's spokesperson initially stated that 
the CD burners did not permit patrons to make multiple 
copies of CDs, and asserted, incorrectly, the widely-held 
perception that burning a disk is not itself an 
infringement of Canadian law. 
 
¶9. (SBU) In September 2005, faced with pressure from ADISQ 
as well as negative media coverage, the library blocked the 
disk burning software on all of its computers. According 
to the Library's coordinator of the music and film 
collection, "once we became aware that patrons were using 
the computers to make copies of music, we had to do 
something. It was happening right in front of our eyes. 
We could not pretend it was not happening." This change in 
the library's computer software, however, does not prohibit 
the Quebec library's patrons from borrowing CDs and making 
copies at home, or making such copies within the library on 
their personal laptops. The Library's film and music 
coordinator admitted that Library patrons could burn disks 
on their personal computers while working in the library as 
well as take disks home to copy. He did note that the 
library places a three disk maximum on music loans, and 
that library employees have been instructed to keep an eye 
 
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out for patrons burning library music on personal 
computers. "Though we can't really see what applications 
[library patrons] are using" he added. 
 
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Comment 
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¶10. (SBU) Like its films, the local popularity of Quebec's 
music places it in a unique position to highlight the 
impacts of IPR violations on smaller artists who are not 
internationally recognized. One RCMP official involved in 
IPR violation investigations in Quebec noted to Econoff 
that his staff, faced with limited resources, had chosen to 
focus their efforts on IPR violations that had a public 
safety component (such as the sale of substandard 
electrical products with counterfeit stickers) rather than 
sales of pirated music. However, in a positive development, 
one contact at ADISQ noted that her group had been 
"cooperating very closely with RCMP officials" in the wake 
of the seizure of pirated goods at the Montreal-area flea 
market and that she expected this cooperation to continue. 
New federal Minister of Industry Maxime Bernier hails from 
Quebec, and although his views on IPR protection have not 
yet been clearly defined, it is likely that he will face 
pressure from Quebec's music and film industry to tighten 
existing regulations and increase penalties for IPR civil 
convictions. 
 
 
MARSHALL