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Canadian Record Industry Presses ISPs in Court
An anonymous reader writes "'Internet service providers have neither an obligation nor, in some cases, the technical means to help the recording industry identify 29 alleged music pirates, a federal judge heard yesterday.' The article continues, 'Shaw Cable, the most defiant company among the pack, poked holes in CRIA's case and accused the music industry of planning an extended fishing expedition for the purpose of forcing individuals into costly settlements before cases ever get to trial. This is the same strategy used by sister organization the Recording Industry Association of America, lawyers argued.'"
Shaw lawyer Charles Scott, of Lax O'Sullivan Scott, said the cable company has a duty to protect the privacy of its customers, not to become a "private investigator" for the music industry by being forced, at its own expense, to analyze and hand over subscriber information
I can hear the next argument: "Hand all of your data over and we'll analyze it...."
My ISP is actually defending my rights?
What's going on here?.
I figgured that when the lawsuits start flying north of 49, Shaw would be the first to belly up and hand over my name, based on their records so far (I had a few billing issues).
I wonder if Canadians can sue CRIA for racketeering like one or two Americans are the RIAA.
RIAA countersued Under Racketeering Laws.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
No ... any good strategist will tell you, don't let your enemy have anything for free. Make him pay for it. These industry groups have only the legal tools that government grants them, and they've only gotten those because there was no organized resistance. Keep the pressure on: don't let them take anything from you without a hard fight. Shaw is taking the proper stance, because once a precedent is set it's that much harder to correct later.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Ya I'm not sure how to feel either. On one hand the support sucks and in recent months I've had outages lasting from 6 hours to 3 days. On the other hand, they seem to actually care about things.
I'm so confused.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I'm no mp3 downloader and I frankly think that most music sucks but I'll be switching to Bell as a matter of principle.
Actually Canada has more restrictive measures in place to limit the press than the U.S.
However we hardly ever use it and they are censored all the time. So we over legislate and underegulate.
They on the other hand lie, then conceal. No complains on this one, Go CANADA.
I thought that Canadians paid a "broadband tax" to cover the cost of "pirating".
Has anyone else here heard of this?
How can the record companies go after someone if they are already receiving a handout from the government to cover that loss?
Am I completely wrong about this?
Wouldn't this be "double jeopardy" if you've paid your share for using broadband, but they are still sueing users?
Read, L