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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."
Also in the article:
Summary: a non-event.The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
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.
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
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)
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.
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."
" 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
When moderating, please remember "Troll" means intentionally inflamatory, not just something you disagree with.
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.