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Music Industry Loses In Canadian Downloading Case

Posted by timothy on from the land-of-the-free-once-removed dept.

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.""

6 of 736 comments (clear)

  1. Hooray! by Vargasan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hooray for Canada.

    Wait... Which country was the 'Land of the Free' again?

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  2. Go after the IP by grafikhugh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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 ?

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  3. Favourite qoute from a similar article by oblivionboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:So wait a minute by RetroGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Legal access to addictive drugs

    What, you cannot buy cigarettes where you live?

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  5. summary is not really accurate by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 5, Insightful
    OK, think about this for a minute. Canadian law can't work the way the summary implies, because Canadians aren't idiots. To work reasonably, a legal system needs a way to allow you to discover the identity of someone you want to sue if they have done something that makes them legally liable to you.

    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.

  6. Re:Woo! Proxy Time by Br!an+of+Paco · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorized the reproduction of sound recordings," von Finckenstein wrote in his 28-page ruling. "They merely placed personal copies into their shared directories which were accessible by other computer users via a P2P service." http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/2004/03/31/downloa d_court040331 Sounds to me like uploading's legal too.