Slashdot Mirror
Canadian High Court Says ISPs Don't Owe Royalties
canwaf writes "According to the CBC, and the other guys: In a 9-0 decision, Canada's highest court ruled, despite the fact that ISPs provide the means for piracy, they are not liable for what people download. They continue in their decision that Internet access providers are not bound by federal copyright legislation. Coupled with an earlier story on Slashdot, this is a very good thing." Edward Scissorhands was one of many readers to link to the Globe and Mail's article, too.
I had always wondered what Canada is up to...they seemed to be a very neutral and uneventful country to me for a long time. I later found out that they make a lot of modem hardware for one, but more importantly, it looks like Canada is good at preserving certain rights. Like the one in this article -- internet privacy, essentially...not to mention bud is basically legal there! Go Canada!
Two freaks, no foes. It takes absolutely nothing to make some people angry.
Because (in the US at least) ISP are not defined by the law to be Common Carriers.
A Common Carrier is required to carry whatever content is provided on a non-discriminatory basis. That means they don't get to drop something just because they don't like it (as ISP's routinely do with SPAM and such). But because they have to carry it (even if it may be illegal) they can't be held responsible for doing so.
This ruling could be read as a move toward common carrier-like status for ISP's. That could be good for people who want to pass MP3's around, bad for people who want SPAMers to not be able to fill their inbox with crud.
However, if the ruling had gone the other way, we might well have seen ISP's get a certified right to block SPAM, MP3's, and anything else they didn't like, including HTTP requests to competing search engines, and VoIP packets where the ISP isn't getting a cut of the call toll.
It's an interesting ruling, but the roulette wheel is still spinning, and the ball is still bouncing.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
This is relevant: http://www.eff.org/IP/Apple_Complaint.php
If we start accusing people of crimes for aiding the ability for another to perform a crime, we might as well throw everyone on the planet in jail. How many people does a terrorist interact with in his/her life? Is the father at fault for teaching the kid about money, whereupon the kid learns knowledge about how to abuse the system to become rich? How can possibly prove that the father had "intent" to teach the son how to do something illegal? You can't. That's why the person is the one who is blamed for their own action in breaking the law (as well as any obvious people who contributed directly to the act.)
Further, what is blamed of a person is the action they take, not anything which leads up to the action (even the person's own thinking.) Recall the lesson to be learned by the movie/book Minority Report: though a person may show all the signs which establish intent to perform a crime, that does not mean they are guilty until they actually perform a crime. I may walk down the street and think about having sex with a woman I see walking next to me, but it's not rape until I actually go up and try to rape her.
The problem here is that the Internet is designed for free speach, not for law or copywrite enforcement. ISPs are being targeted becuase they have a means to enforce laws. But enforcing law is not the responsiblity of an ISP. ISPs neither have the physical means to enforce copywrite nor the mandate to do so. Let the FBI create a Net Force division a la Tom Clancy, and do their own copywrite enforcement. Attacking ISPs (or universities, or any other group other then a law enforcement group) is not the answer.