Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Canadians can legally download music?
I'm not a big fan of downloading MP3's from the Internet. Partly because as a musician myself, I believe that artists should be fairly compensated for their work, but also because when I listen to music, I'm usually using my $2000 stereo system (yes, stereo, not home theatre) so compressed MP3 just don't cut it for me!
It is a little known fact that in Canada, every time you buy a blank CD you pay a levy to compensate artists for private copying. In exchange for paying this levy, Canadian law states that copying music for private use is in fact, legal. You can't make a copy of a CD and give it to a friend - this would be distribution. You can, however, make a copy for your own personal use - this is referred to as the Section 8 exemption.
According to the a recent ruling by the copyright board, the law is unclear as to where the source of the copy can be obtained from. In other words, the way they are interpreting the law, I can't make a copy of a CD I own and give it to you. It seems that they are saying that you can borrow a CD from me, and legally make a copy of it, and in fact they take this further by stating that uploading music on the Internet is illegal, but downloading music and burning it to a CD is not (as this falls under the private copying exemption.
Sound too good to be true? It may well be, as the Copyright Board doesn't actually have the final authority to interpret the law - instead, the Canadian courts have the ultimate decision. To that effect, the Canadian Recording Industry has announced it will start suing music file sharers. They haven't made it clear if they are only going after uploaders, or if they will have a go at downloaders as well.
So, although you can certainly copy your own music for personal use, I'm not advocating that you start downloading music - talk to your lawyer first :-)
Interestingly, this hasn't had any press in the Canadian media. It has, however, been widely reported in the US tech media. For example, check out the
- Kelly
Posted at 2:00 PM by Kelly's Music :: Archived :: TrackBack (0) ::
Friday, December 12, 2003
New presents for Moog Modular
Arturia has released some cool new presets for their Moog Modular V. Download them free from their site.
Don't have the Moog Modular yet? Check out the demo for a software version of the world's best known analog synth.
- Kelly
Posted at 5:15 PM by Kelly's Music :: Archived :: TrackBack (0) ::
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Cubase or Sonar?
One of the main reasons why I had switched from Sonar to Cubase SX was because of the VST instruments available in Cubase such as The Grand, B4, Warp VST, Moog Modular etc. I actually preferred
Sonar's interface and found it more user friendly, but am now quite used to Cubase SX.
Now there are the new Sonar 3 Studio Edition and Producer Edition available. Some of the new features include SUPPORT FOR VST EFFECTS and INSTRUMENTS, a completely redesigned interface, advanced MIDI routing & synth layering and full control over color schemes with multiple presets.
So now Cubase and
Sonar are very similar in features, however, Sonar still has yet to support surround sound mixing which is found in Cubase SX. I personally don't really mix in surround sound for anything as of yet, however, it is definitely a nice option to have.
Overall, anyone looking for a sequencing program and you don't need surround, as far as features go, Sonar Producer and Cubase SX appear to be similar. Definitely try out the demos of both programs to see which user interface you prefer. It looks like I'll be going back and forth from Sonar and Cubase for the time being.
- Brian
Posted at 8:26 PM by Kelly's Music :: Archived :: TrackBack (0) ::