Why We Pirate
So I’m sitting here in my office, studying changes in income tax legislation and other thrilling topics, listening to some lovely classical music on our proud national radio station: the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). A song comes on that pulls me from my reading; a catchy, somewhat familiar tune but with a light, folksy bent.
I take a look at the iTunes window: “a rural holiday”, from an album called “Snake Fence Country”. Cool name. I summon Google.

Cool name, and local too!
It’s from the CBC Records label… hey sweet! Edmonton Wind Ensemble! My home town. I think I would like to give them money in exchange for my own copy of this album to enjoy at my leisure! Back to iTunes. Search for: “Snake Fence Country”

D’oh. Disappointing, but not everything is in iTunes. Back to Google. First link is Classics Online: Your Classical Music Download Source. Sounds promising… but then I see:
Not available in my country? It’s from my country! My city! The label is our national media company! This can’t be right. Trying somewhere else. Amazon.ca:
A HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE… ok, ok. It’s obviously out of production, fairly obscure, not completely unreasonable that the CD would be unavailable. What about Amazon.com:
Ah-ha! So it is out there somewhere! That gives me an idea. Back to iTunes, change the store to U.S…
How can an album made in Canada, by Canadians, and released by a national Canadian government funded organization not be available to Canadians!?
Stupid, ignorant, hateful, petty… who wins here? Tell me. What possible benefit is this situation to anyone involved in or interested in this music? How the hell did the CBC allow this to take place? Since the CBC is publicly funded, which means that Canadian tax dollars were involved in the production of this album, how is it that the rights have become locked up by a foreign entity that can block Canadians from purchasing it??
This is everything that’s wrong with our intellectual property legislation today. Pointless and ridiculous interference that doesn’t help anyone. Well, except for the ignorant politicians that get bribed into passing this bullshit and the soulless corporations that seem to exist only to drain money away from the people who actually care about music.
Unfortunately this particular album is obscure enough that I can’t seem to find it on any of my usual torrent search sites, otherwise I’d be freely enjoying it while writing this diatribe (“free” being a key word there). I do have my fake US iTunes account that I set up last time I ran into this stupidity. But honestly, as much as I enjoyed that one song, and I’m sure I would love the rest, I have my doubts as to whether any of the money would actually get to the artists if I were to purchase it this way. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find the CD in a second-hand music store somewhere. More likely I’ll just never hear it again, and no one will have got any of the money that I was happy to spend. Lose-lose.










