The Globe and Mail carried an article called “Changing Canada’s tune on copyright law” giving Toronto jazz singer Sophie Milman an outlet to argue in favour of tougher copyright laws in Canada. The article hits all of the usual themes.
The standard false dichotomy:
It’s a long-running debate, pitting artists, record companies and the like against a new class of Internet companies and consumers who keep finding ways to download copyrighted music without paying.
The standard Canada-as-backwater:
“We are lagging behind, no question about that. Fairly or not, Canada is constantly being placed on intellectual property watch lists as being a piracy haven”
The funniest part is the opening. Sophie Milman, arguing in favour of stronger protections, has this conversation immediately after playing someone else’s song:
The impromptu midday jam session in a deserted corridor of Toronto’s Royal York Hotel was arranged for the benefit of a Globe and Mail photographer, who snaps away as the couple launch into a bouncy version of My Baby Just Cares for Me, made popular by Nina Simone.
Hopefully she paid up.
IP
copyright, music
The IFPI has a slideshow set to music (hopefully licensed!) with some stats on music downloads. I want to look at two of the slides in particular, to discuss how they fail to paint a usable picture despite seeming damning.
The relevant fact is that “France has seen an almost 2/3 reduction in local releases since 2002″. On the face of it, this is damning. The impression we’re supposed to get is that 2/3 of people in the music industry in France must have lost their jobs! Likely this stat is only talking about major label releases. What about indie bands? Is the number up or down? Is their revenue up or down? Is there more or less local music available to French listeners through all channels? They don’t tell us. And that stat is interesting but ultimately useless without more information.
On this slide, we’re told that “In Spain there has been a 65% drop in local top 50 albums since 2004″. What does this even mean? A drop in what measurement? Sales? Dollars? Pictures of elephants on the covers? For the sake of argument, let’s assume we’re talking sales numbers here. What’s the revenue change across the entire industry? Are sales up in the bottom 999999999950 local albums? Is total revenue up? Are there more bands or fewer? Do we even care if top 50 sales are down if it means an increase in the total number of bands?
I hope I illustrated how facts and statistics can be (are are!) used to create an impression without actually conveying enough useful information to come to any reasoned conclusions about. I hope the IFPI releases a follow-up with all the details.
IP
copyright, music
