Music, musings and miscellanea

The Globe and Mail‘s “Download Decade” series continues with parts 3 and 4 now up on their website.

I have to say that while the main stories don’t break a lot of new ground, they do an admirable job of summing up the story so far, which from the title of the series is what they intended to do.

Part 3 tackles the sticky problem of piracy (sorry, “copyright infringement” as one commenter posited. Downloading might be legal in Canada, but either way, nobody’s getting any money for the Green Day record you just downloaded) and how the habit might (if ever) be changed. It’s definitely the shortest entry and the least comprehensive in the series thus far. Curiously, Matt Hartley, who wrote the other three entries, didn’t contribute to this one.

Part 4 examines the lack of political will on behalf of Canadian politicians (thank you, minority government) to reform Canadian copyright law. The last time any new legislation was created was in 1997 and if you haven’t already heard, it’s a bit of a contentious issue these days. Personally I’m fine with this as I don’t really want Stephen Harper to be the one penning any such law. Quite frankly, I just don’t trust the guy.

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