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Canadian Music Swappers Win Court Battle

Columbo writes "The CBC has an article today detailing a win for file sharers in Canadian courts. The ruling upheld the right of ISPs to withhold the names and addresses of people alleged to be trading copious amounts of music via P2P networks. The unanimous decision doesn't completely close the door for further action against the ISPs by the Canadian Recording Industry Association."

15 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. /. exaggerates again... by whoever57 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From the article:
    "The appeal will be dismissed without prejudice to the plaintiffs' right to commence a further application for disclosure of the identity of the 'users' taking into account these reasons," Sexton wrote.
    Dismissed without prejudice is almost meaningless with respect to the "rights" of the eventual targets (P2P users) -- it means nothing either way.

    Also in the article:

    In Thursday's decision, the three judge-panel turned down the appeal request but wrote that the earlier ruling should not have made conclusions about whether downloading or uploading music should be illegal.
    Summary: a non-event.
    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  2. A win for file sharers? by mindstrm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not a win for "file sharers". It's a win for everyone, as the court demonstrated and understanding of overall privacy issues in the internet age, and didn't allow one little thing to stomp all over that.

    File sharers will still be prosecutable, those doing the prosecuting will simply have to do a bit more work in order to find out who they are, and this is GOOD.

  3. Glad they said this... by bsquizzato · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In Thursday's decision, the three judge-panel turned down the appeal request but wrote that the earlier ruling should not have made conclusions about whether downloading or uploading music should be illegal.

    On first reading this article you may quickly come to the conclusion that this court case decided that sharing music wasn't breaking any laws at all. It's obvious that the judicial system sees that there is something wrong with sharing music, but at least until they come to the official conclusion and write that down, it's nice to see they'll uphold the rights of the ISPs' customers.

  4. Re:Consider immigration to the north... by Kwil · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You also forgot where the federal budget has been balanced for 7 years, which repeatedly scores above the US in "best place to live in" surveys by the UN, where getting sick doesn't equate to going bankrupt, and lower gun crime per capita.

    On the con side, 5 months winter or worse, higher income tax, and a fairly continuous shafting by the US in trade agreements.

    --

    That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze

  5. Re:Its far from over though ... by temojen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As much as I despise Paul Martin, Ujjal Dosanjh, and Belinda Stronach, the regressive conservatives are even worse.

    What this country really needs is an NDP government with a slight minority, supported issue-by-issue by former backbench Liberals and BQ members.

    Well, that, and a media that investigates stories instead of just taking whatever the PR firms say, a ban on raw-log exports, and a non-insane regime leading our large neighbour.

    (according to the CBC, the budget bill passed, with the speaker breaking the tie in favour of the administration)

  6. Re:1 area of protection, useful to all? by jim_v2000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You provide a proxy for a nominal fee and downloaders and uploaders can proxy through you without fear of reprisal.

    You forget, my friend, the reason these people would need such a service is because they don't want to pay.

    --
    Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
  7. Re:Consider immigration to the north... by temojen · · Score: 2, Insightful
    As I understand it the original laws were based on a lot of wrong information.
    Also a lot of lobbying by the petrochemical industry (hemp has a lot of the same uses as nylon and polyester).
  8. Re:Lets Roll! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Why do you think there was a war, you moron? When the rebels win and found a new country it's a war of independence. When they lose and are brought back to the mother country it's a civil war. You brain dead piece of trash, did you fail third grade history?

  9. Re:Oh yay, we can pirate safely now in Canada! by kebes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you felt relieved or happy about this ruling, you were probably concerned about the legality of your actions already.

    True, but being concerned about the legality of an action is not the same thing as being concerned about the ethics of an action. You can be worried... that doesn't mean you feel guilty.

    I mean, imagine if someone stole your stuff, but the police told you that they would get it back, but they aren't allowed to find out where they live.

    As a matter of fact, lots of evidence is thrown out of court cases because it was acquired in a way that did not respect the rights of an accused. The police are not allowed to just randomly search whoever they want. There are rules. If these rules are broken, the information is not admissable, even if it proves someone is guilty of a crime. This is done so that the authorities do not feel compelled to abuse the rights of citizens. These protections are good for citizens. This is a privacy issue: if ISPs give away IP logs without there being a good reason, then the privacy of the users is not being respected. There are laws in Canada regarding privacy protection.

    If you obtain a copy of a song without providing compensation to the copyright holder, your are breaking law and stealing from the copyright holder.

    In some countries, not all. There are many countries where the copyright won't apply. In Canada, the courts ruled that because we are paying a tax on media (like blank CDs), it is legal to make copies onto these media. So in fact downloading and making a copy of a copyrighted work is legal in Canada. No law is being broken. (Although distribution would be illegal in Canada.)

    if you aren't stealing the song, you are stealing the "right" to make copies

    Nice try. You can perform semantic acrobatics all you like, but ultimately it is a copyright violation and not theft. Rights can be ignored or violated, but they can't be stolen. I don't know how to "steal a right" anymore than I know how to "steal a belief."

  10. Re:Its far from over though ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I'm from BC and I'm glad the Liberals are in power. The last thing I want to see is that American-loving Harper take control of our country.

    Still, having lived in BC, Ontario, and Quebec, I have to say this: stop blaming the other province for your fucking problems and stop solving them your fucking selves!

  11. Re:Confidence vote by geekee · · Score: 2, Insightful

    " Fortunately the asshat conservatives and the even more selfish Bloc were defeated by a single vote."

    Liberals are more selfish than conservatives. Conservatives want to keep their own money while liberals want to keep money earned by conservatives.

    --
    Vote for Pedro
  12. Re:Its far from over though ... by temojen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When moderating, please remember "Troll" means intentionally inflamatory, not just something you disagree with.

  13. Re:Confidence vote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Almost every liberal that you see on TV espousing a liberal taxation policy is wealthy (poor people don't show up on the news very often). I.e., they're advocating not just increasing your taxes, but *increasing their own taxes*, because they care enough about those less fortunate than them and want to cut taxes/increase services for them.

    All those conservatives and "their money" only have that money today because of the social framework and infrastructure that allowed them to succeed. In an unregulated economy, you end up with robber barons with monied lineages and impoverished masses. The odds of an uneducated slum resident coming up with some scientific breakthrough or improvement to the economy, even if they're naturally gifted and ambitious, are quite low (it does happen - for example, Tesla - but not very often). It's the reason that you don't see a very many articles with titles like "Ghetto student invents new fusion apparatus".

    Not that "pure" socialism is good; people need incentive to succeed. But to pretend that your wealth was created in a vaccuum devoid of influence of the successes of others and the external factors that enabled you and them to succeed is just ridiculous.

  14. Re:Consider immigration to the north... by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 4, Insightful
    And the sun shines for all of three hours in the winter, and the snow falls for eight months, and you have to get on a months-long waiting list to see certain types of doctors? I love many things about Canada, my ancestral home, but there are reasons to live in Los Angeles. Like wearing flip-flops in January. and filling your gas tank for less than $75.

    Oh we're going that way are we?

    See, the first post was a *slight* exaggeration of the truth. Your post is, how shall i put it, not at all true. So we'll follow that game:

    There are reasons to live in Canada, such as not getting shot at every 5 minutes, dwelling within a massive toxic cloud of smog, or having to witness one of the most painfully appalling pieces of urban blight ever foisted upon the Earth by the hand of man.

    Sorry - was I exaggerating?

    --
    If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
  15. Re:text of the ruling by Sinistrad_D · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I'm sorry but if copyright holders are "being robbed of the fruit of their efforts", then why am I paying a "tax" on all burnable media to be given directly to the copyright holders to cover the cost of my inevitable downloading. Just a thought.