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Music Industry Loses In Canadian Downloading Case
pref writes "'Canada's music industry can't force Internet service providers to identify online music sharers, a Federal Court judge has ruled.' They wanted the Internet service companies like Sympatico, Rogers and Shaw to give them the real identities of the individuals so they could sue them for copyright infringement. They were seeking a court order requiring the companies to provide the information. But they didn't get it, so the Internet companies don't have to identify their clients and the music companies can't proceed with their lawsuits.""
Hooray for Canada.
Wait... Which country was the 'Land of the Free' again?
Putting the romance back into necromancer.
I think I know what country I'll go to college in now.
C'mon you Slashdotters in .ca, how about setting up some anon HTTP proxies so that the rest of us can download freely? Your ISP logs can't be subpoenad, so we can all download stuff via your pipes, and the Evil Record Companies can't do anything!!!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
What is to stop them from suing the IP number and using the court case as a means to identify the user? Didn't the RIAA have to take that aproach after losing a similair lawsuit ?
The Surgeon General says sigs are bad for me.
"Until then, Canadian online music traders are free to keep swapping songs, Akin said."
Um, but aren't they facing the chance of being sued anyway? So yes, you can go back to swapping songs, since nobody has been sued YET - but that doesn't mean you aren't leaving yourself open to it when they get their act together.
wow! i can get married AND trade music files?? WOOOT! I'm moving to canada!
In a related article from canoe.ca , the judge was qoute as saying,"I cannot see a real difference between a library that places a photocopy machine in a room full of copyrighted material and a computer user that places a personal copy on a shared directory linked to a P2P service,"
Doesn't this analogy actually make more sense, than alot of the analogies to "theft" that the record industry has thrown out?
On the other hand, it may not be that valid, because to actually photocopy an entire book would be prohibatively expensive. Where as with P2P whether you download an entire album or just one song its the same cost. Free.
It isn't clear what the real impact of this decision is. If you read the article, it quotes lawyers as saying that the music industry prepared a sloppy case and that it can always try again. It may only be a temporary victory. But at least it sounds like the Canadian courts are requiring a higher standard of evidence of infringement than the US courts are.
First off, I'm surprised but elated that the Judge seems to have been technically competent enough to see this. However, downloaders be warned: the music industry will now proceed to actually participate in copyright infringement by downloading those shared songs or otherwise monitoring the downloads of those shared songs. The "my songs are shared out but were not actually downloaded" argument might not work next time.
All the judge said was that the people sharing the music weren't committing any illegal acts. And depending on how you read Canada's copyright law, it may even be legal to download songs via P2P networks. It'll be interesting as this law is put to tests -- if the network traffic passes through the States, does it then become subject to American law? What if one person is in Canada, and the other isn't?
Legal access to addictive drugs
Well its now 10am and Im on my 5th cup of coffee. Time for my cigarette break.
Socialized health care.
Ohh crap. Tripped down stairs. Leg hurts like hell. Time to go to a doctor.
Me: My leg hurts.
Doctor: Stay off it.
Me: How much do I owe you?(after paying bill I apply for Chapter 11)
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
it's because it's on a technicality about "insufficient information."
What's wrong with the CRIA obtaining subpoenas against people that they can positively identify as file uploaders of the member companies' copyrighted material? It's not outrageously hard to have somebody at minimum wage sit behind a terminal and try to download music from Canadian ip addresses. And once you have that, it's a known act of copyright infringement anyway, which as we all know, is illegal.
I don't condone the recording industry's stance and think they should be looking to leverage the technology instead of fighting against it, but they do have the legal right to demand information on people that they have reasonable evidence of illegal activity on. Let them sue the people that upload, not people that use the technology that could either upload or not.
Besides, I'm not sure we want the ISPs to take on the role of gatekeeper either. This is a legal liability on ISPs and the costs of that will be borne by the end-user.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
Legal access to addictive drugs
What, you cannot buy cigarettes where you live?
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
He compared the action to a photocopy machine in a library. "I cannot see a real difference between a library that places a photocopy machine in a room full of copyrighted material and a computer user that places a personal copy on a shared directory linked to a P2P service," he said.
Besides, the IP changes, and the ISPs *don't* have to divulge who had the IP at any given time. Kind of hard to sue in that case...
Reading the story, we see that this is indeed the case. The ISPs weren't compelled to release the IDs because the music companies had not shown sufficient evidence that a copyright violation had occured. If they had shown sufficient evidence, the ISPs probably would have had to cough up the names.
RIAA found a way. It was the same way the CRIA tried. An american judges accepted it while a canadian judge did not.
Maybe the RIAA knows how to line the judges pockets, with money, better?
They thought it was a fair exchange when they agreed to it, but mp3 technology, and the decline in price of burners, now make them regret the deal.
It's the old saying - they made their bed, let them sleep in it!
In spite of this, Canadian television has yet to produce a domestic hit television series
I guess that depends on what you consider a hit and what you consider Canadian television.
Many shows are filmed in Vancouver with at least partly Canadian cast members. Quite a few shows have been produced by the CBC which I would call hits. Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour has 22 Minutes both spring to mind. Hell, if you can't call The Red Green Show a hit, I don't know what is.
In spite of this, Canadian television has yet to produce a domestic hit television series, and virtually all our recording artists flee to the states Like with all other statments you should check the facts before fudding - Here are a couple examples for ya: Trailor Park Boys Corner Gas
http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/ac-ca/pubs/can-con/can_ con.html
If you follow the government link you will see the rules are stated differently. The original link contends that "music" must be Canadian. I'm not sure which is correct but I was under the idea (having worked in a volunteer position in sports broadcasting for a local small radio station) that "up to" 35% of the content played on the radio from 6am to midnight" had to be Canadian.
Anyone who listens to daytime radio can verify that a good portion of it isn't music. I can say that one of the reasons that the radio station covered this live sporting event was so that they could air 3 hours of Canadiana per day. That allowed for 6 fulls hours of free playing. It was my understanding as well that locally produced advertising and the DJ's themselves were considered Canadian content. The link that you gave and the link that I gave are confusing on this.
"In general, 35% of the sound recordings played on a radio station between 6 a.m. and midnight must qualify as "Canadian content" as defined by the MAPL system."
Regardless.....we do have laws that force our radio stations to air Canadian content. This is not in doubt.
Liberate people? Puh-lease. You don't actually believe that garbage do you? Based on what? Manifest destiny? Genocide of the american natives? Slavery? Maybe the US being so quick to join in the fight against Hitler?
Your options are:
1) lobby the government to make people pay levies on most recordable media, to compensate artists for personal copies of musical works, which is thereafter specifically allowed;
2) sue people for making music available for others to potentially copy for their personal use.
Please choose only ONE option at a time.
Sanest decision I've seen in a while. Of course the NAFTA IP rationalization stuff that's going on will try to ram US values down the rest of our throats, further causing us to vilify americans.
You obviously aren't aware of why CanCon exists in the first place.
The CanCon rules were put in because Canadian content providers were *not* presenting Canadian content at all. Canadian radio stations would *not* play Canadian music. And this has nothing to do with quality. There was no such thing as fair competition; radio producers would throw out demos without listening to them. Canadian musicians had no chance.
The only way that Canadian musicians could get popular in Canada is if they made it big in the States beforehand. Think of how many Canadian musicians you actually know of before the 1970s. Neil Young? Robby Robertson? Paul Anka? All of whom gained fame south of the border first.
So bitch all you want. But our content situation Would be in an even *worse* situation without CanCon.
Music wants to be free.
This is exactly why the blank media levy works in our favour. We already pay something to the artists, and that's why the copyright laws give us the freedoms they do.
Also, Canada imports most of its music from U.S. record companies anyway. Why spend effort protecting mostly foreign interests? Don't send your money to Brittney Spears -- buy locally!
>If law enforcement comes knocking and tells me
>that one of my clients threatened to kill the
>President or blow up the school then that's
>quite another story (somebody's life might be
>in danger).
How can you say that, dude? The lives of Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti are most certainly in danger if someone is pirating songs or movies. Hilary might not get that Caviar Flambe' Cheese Souffle for breakfast and starve to death, and Jack might get killed in an auto accident because he couldn't afford the air bag upgrade for his H2 and drove the Testarosa that day instead - and all because you couldn't find the time to "dig through" your damn log files.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
The irony is that, in order for the RIAA or whoever to prove that a user downloaded copyrighted material, they'd have to post it themselves to the network -- which, being the copyright holder, would make it legal to download.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
So? North Korea's official name is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea"...
--
look it up
"a group of similar independent companies who join together to control prices and limit competition"
Do they control prices?
Do they limit competition?
Of course they do! They it's a Cartel!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Of course it was the Brits, Canada didn't become sovereign until 1867. duh. dolt.
Slashdot circa 2000:
"They shouldn't be suing Napster or Kazaa, they should sue the individual copyright infringers! That is the legal and moral thing to do."
Slashdot circa today:
"Nobody should be suing anybody! I have no good reasons."
What happens when Trusted Computing architectures meet these p2p services, and a "bug" is found that allows anonymous access to all shared content? What if the network operators refuse to expire the certs on the "buggy" software? Are they liable for the infringement of the users, who refuse to stop using the software because they use it for other things?
The users can't stop the copies from being made because they're locked into the software, and shouldn't be expected to stop using the service (which they use for other reasons).
The authors can't be expected to be liable for the (mis)use of software bey their userbase, so long as it has a "substantial non-infringing use".
Vendor lock-in meets free speech.
OK, I know I'm way out west, here...
I was reading through some threads here about the canadians isp's not having to give up file-sharers names and I didn't see this point mentioned. The judge didn't keep the isp's usersname's secret because of the users or companies right per se. The judge turned their request down because he did not believe that the any copyrights had been broken as a result of the user participating in file sharing. HA!
I'm not sure if the lawyers just made a really weak case or what the deal was, but the judge just didn't think that the users were violating any copyrights, ergo, there was no need to reveal their names.
It's true. My Canadian news told me so.