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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.'"
Makes me almost happy to put up with Shaw's mediocre mail servers.
GO SHAW!
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
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...."
Seems canada's status as the new land of the free may have been short-lived.
Well, they're obviously wrong.
Pirates don't go fishing, they go pillaging.
judge:NEXT!
ISP: "Look, it's not our job to scour our reams of data just so you can make up some dirt on our customers."
RIAA: "You're right...guess you'd better hand it over to us."
ISP: "No."
Court: "Yes."
ISP: "Fuck."
Actually being on a small ISP leaves you way more open to harrassment by the various authorities, as your ISP probably doesnt have the legal funds or will to fight off the large well bankrolled organizations such as the CRIA. At least large companies like Shaw, Telus, etc. already have a plethora of lawyers just chomping at the bit to fight any legal challenges
drunk chemists
But is there not a right to privacy? If the RIAA can spy onto your shared folder is that not the same as looking into your house or mail? Are those rights not protected by the law? Lawyer Help me out
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.
So yes, we do indeed have freedom of speech, and it is protected.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
why are they logging anyway ? whats wrong with unticking
[ ] save log to disk
or send them to dev>null
if the logs didnt exist there wouldnt be anything to argue
also the ISP has not said they will refuse, from the article..
by being forced, at its own expense, to analyze and hand over subscriber information.
are they saying that they will hand it over if the RIAA pay them for the information ? re-imburse their expenses ?
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.
Shaw is too busy spamming the rest of the world to care about cooperating with an investigation.
No.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
will the courts uphold the previous laws passed about fair use... we pay tarrifs on media as a result of the laws that give us the right to share and copy music.. you cant charge someone a fee like that and then sure them for excercising their rights.
The plantiffs (recording industry) would probably not be able ot show the judge that there are reasonable grounds for them to be able to anyalyze records of indivduals that are not associated with the lawsuit. If you are involved in a personal injury lawsuit, you can't subpoena the hospitals entire patient file.
Canada also has a privacy law.
Always remember:
Pillage first, then burn.
I haven't bought a new album from a retail record store in years and years. Whenever I desire a peice of plastic (which is frequent enough) I'll pick it up at a used store, earning the artist and label no money anyway. How long until second hand shops are shut down by CRIA?
Anyone who thinks Canada is freer than the States is full of crap. We are simply 1 or 2 years behind our big fat brother downstairs. We'll adopt every law they enact (file swapping) and maintain every nonsensical law they uphold (marijuana posession) until the end of time. Why? Because we don't want Dubya to drop a W-bomb on our various beaver hatcheries.
All hail America Jr., land of the slightly freer (until 1 year later).
In the mean time, keep doing what you do. Make a statement by defying the law. Protect yourself while you do it. Use PeerGuardian 2.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting anyone go out and do this, but wouldn't it be an interesting scenario to protest and demonstrate against the recording industries' treatment of the customer as a pre-supposed criminal, and show what devastating effects losing the customers altogether can wreak?
For example, wouldn't it be interesting if all owners of CD's just decided after making sure they had ripped and encoded and backed up their existing CD's under the auspices of "fair use" suddenly decided to sell their CD's... say, maybe for $1? Now, of course, the most important thing in this transaction is the seller remember to destroy existing "fair share" stock... :-)
I would think if some organized mass effort like this ever grew legs, the recording industries would maybe understand better the repercussions of their disdain and disregard for the integrity of their customers. (I, myself, have about 1300 CD's )
Just my 01
Shaw's true reason is not that they CARE about their customer's privacy, but rather that their network infrastructure is so fucked-up that they are simply unable to keep logs properly...
Yesterday an anti-piracy "decreto di legge" (for the moment only for movies, but it will be extended) was passed (the final step before it becomes a law). It is somewhat like the new european law, but it is stricter with sharers. The ISPs are by law forced to hand over to the "Guardia di Finanza" (cops) the info on the sharers whenever a copyright owner complains (the law says that if they don't comply, they can be fined for up to 250.000 euros). The sharers will then be fined "simbolically": (1500 euros), and the information of the fined sharer will be published (!!!) on a national newspaper!! Yup, no kiddin', Italy sucks, and if you know italian you can check for your self here: http://www.beniculturali.it/download/DL_Cinema_PCM 12032004.pdf
More info can be found here: http://punto-informatico.it/p.asp?i=47374 , but unfortunately it's all in Italian (I am waiting to find an article in english to submit the story....)
Whether Shaw Cable has a messed up network or they respect the users privacy, its nice to see ISP's stand up against the music industry for a change instead of whimpering in a corner.
At least they are not going out of the way to get some poor kid sued for a million dollars!
Lord of the Binges.
As funny as that is, the real reason is that Videotron is owned by Quebecor, who sells music. So the CRIA going after filesharers is in their best interest. Whereas a company like Shaw, with no ties to the music industry, is telling the CRIA & co to fuck off and stop badgering their precious customers (after all, Shaw would much rather swindle us out of our money first!)
I'm sure Shaw must be able to track what dunamic IP was mapped to which username at any given point in time..
So how does this story affect 'My Rights Online'??
Damn slashdot editors think your rights are the same everywhere.
Because a precedent created anywhere -- but especially in Western democracies -- will be used as justification for the same legislation or rulings elsewhere.
It's a matter of record that on controversial issues, one nation's courts or legislatures will look to what is the prevailing opinion in other democracies -- witness some of the U.S. Supreme Court's various opinion on capital punishment, some of which make reference to the prevailing climate of opinion in Europe.
And it's not mere coincidence that the European Union and Australia is passing laws that look a lot like the DMCA; given world-wide trade, one nation will pressure another nation to bring its laws into conformance with the first's, or into conformance with some international treaty.
So wherever the bell tolls, whether in Canada or Germany or your own homeland, the bell tolls for you. It's in my direct interest to see that my neighbors' rights are secured in their countries, so as to provide a good example to the legislators and judges in my own country.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
K
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.
In most western societies, ignorance of a law is no excuse for breaking it.
The owls are not what they seem
IANAL, but I don't believe #2 holds water. In Canada, ignorance of the law is not a defence. If Johnny knew he was uploading files making them publicly available the Mens Rea and Actus Reus are present, making him guilty. Provided of course that doing so is in fact illegal. I do believe that #1 and #3 would be legitimate defenses.
Are the CRIA making sure to go only after the P2P users who have uploaded?
:)
I ask since...possesing copies of music you dont own, including P2P downloading is TOTALLY LEGAL here in canada. (first link is to the govt site explaining fair use, explaining you can copy any music, even music you dont own, as long as YOU are the one making the copy)
Fair use covers the fact that I can 100% legally borrow my friends cd's and copy them. He, on the other hand, CAN NOT make a copy for me.
So I guess Canada is not totally regressing into the USA
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
However, the Internet and disks are still not considered taxable medias. Sueing peoples make no sense. What they should do, it is to trying to convince the Board to include Internet and disks in the list. And the money should go to the artists rather than to the recording industry.
Personnally, I would be willing to pay some amount for the artists, but not for the industry which seems to me always harder to justify. Dinosaurs became extincted because they were simply obsolete given the new living conditions on earth. The recording industry is simply becoming obsolete, not the artists, and I don't see any reason to perpetuate the mascarade...
Achille Talon
Hop!
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
TELUS recently started to hand out notices of copyright infringment. Its mostly bittorrent ports they monitor but in the copyright notice they actually specify the name of the file and the date / time.
It specifically said it wasnt a legal notice but just a warning that this could be seen as copyright infringment.
I would but the parent's facts are a little off.
King Pierre first obtained power in 1968 after a bloody internal power stuggle within the palace. This reign was interupted by a short period (June 1979 through March 1980) of insurrection led by Joe Clarke. King Pierre was then able to muster the proper forces and return to power until March of 1984. At this time, an squable within the royal family led to a distant cousin, John Turner, briefly (June 1984 through Spetember 1984) seized power.
Turner was violently overthrown in September 1984 by Brian Mulroney (some said he was Ronnald Reagan's bastard brother). Mulroney held power until June 1993 at which time tensions within the country had reached a boiling point. Mulroney, realizing his days were numbered, installed Kim Campbell as puppet leader.
Lady Kim was able to hold power for a remarkable 4 months until deposed in November of 1993 by Prince Jean Chretien, a close cousin of the former King Pierre.
Prince Jean was able to rule with an iron fist until December 2003 when he was deposed by Duke Paul Martin in a bloody internal power struggle whose waves are still agitating the normally placid Canadian politcal waters.
For details, please see this site.
If VISTA is the answer, you didn't understand the question
Montreal-based Groupe Videotron Ltee. is the only service provider to say it will fully co-operate.
As another poster said, thats logic since Videotron is owned by Quebecor Media, that owns Archambault which already have an legal online MP3 download.
My concern about that is the quasi monopol videotron has about home internet service. Fortunately for us, you can always switch to DSL with Bell's Sympatico (they just announced faster download/upload speeds, im reaching 80k upload). Bell AFAIK dont have any business in the music industry and wont offer help (at least not that easily) to the CIRA or whatever its called.
I dont know bout cables alternatives, though.
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
Shaw and Rogers have worked closely together since around 2000 when Shaw swapped it's southern Ontario assets for Rogers' BC assets (angustel.ca). They've done much to develop a national internet backbone across Canada together. I believe that Rogers will follow Shaw closely in denying access to their data.