Canadian record industry faces $6bn copyright fine

The Canadian record industry has been particularly active at pushing its agenda for more - and more implacable - laws against IP infringement.

Perhaps they should be pushing for business model patents too. For they are now looking at a $6 billion lawsuit against them - for IP infringement. [Not $60 billion, as we said earlier].

The story is quite simple and, it seems, uncontested. Since the late 80s, the Canadian recording industry has decided not to pay musicians and other rights holders for tracks used in compilations. Instead, the use gets logged on a 'pending' list - and that's as far as it goes. There are now some 300,000 tracks on those lists, and the rights holders have taken the record companies to court under a class action which could see $20,000 fines per entry. And yes, that's exactly the same law that gets used to slap enormous fines on filesharers. At the behest of the record companies.

(One difference, of course, is that filesharers don't then go on to sell the infringing tracks and keep the money. Copyright violation for profit remains the preserve of the professionals.)

There are insufficient global reserves of irony to do justice to this story. We shall have to mine the asteroid belt.