advocacy

• The Canadian Sound Recording Industry is a key component of Canada’s cultural industries which together account for 3.8% of Canada’s GDP.

• Revenues totaled about $887.3 million in 2008, 70% of which was produced by record production and integrated record production and distribution.

• The music industry produces some of Canada’s best known exports and contributes to the strength of Canada’s brand overseas.

Piracy

• Canada has one of the highest rates of P2P piracy in the world, according to the OECD.

• The effect of widespread unauthorized music downloading has been to reduce music sales in Canada by more than half– the third-largest decline in the world (IFPI).

• Canada is a leading host of some of the world’s most popular online illegitimate Internet sites which facilitate a staggering amount of online theft in Canada and around the world.

• Canada is viewed as a pirate haven, both by the pirate sites that operate freely in Canada because of lax laws and by Canada's trading partners, who view us as a country in which laws to address digital piracy are weak, ineffective, or non-existent.

• Intellectual Property (IP) concerned with industries relying on copyright, trademarks and patents; IP intensive industries contribute heavily to economy and spur innovation.

• IP protection creates a predictable and safe environment for investment; small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) can use IP to attract venture capital.

• On the other hand, “Businesses will under-invest if they believe that their reputation and creations are subject to theft.” (CIPC, A Road Map for Change, March 2007)

• Failure to protect IP poses health and safety concerns, economic threats, and reputational risk.

• The RCMP estimates that counterfeiting and piracy cost the Canadian economy billions of dollars each year. “IP crime poses a threat to Canada’s economic integrity” (RCMP, Project Strider, August 2010)