Slashdot Mirror
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."
That's what they told the recording industry.
Alright RIAA, Lets Roll! Time to take over those pesky northerners who harbor p2p fugitives and play fast and loose with copyrights. Bring it on! You are either with us or against us -- Hee-haa!
The court also said "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,''
:(
The CRIA was told, if they wanted too, to come back "with stronger, and more current, evidence".
It might be interesting to see how they come back and how the Canadian courts view their new case.
Lets hope privacy wins the day!
Now, back to watching my government possibly lose a confidence vote
...where weeds are legal, gays can marry and music is free!
Also in the article:
Summary: a non-event.The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Here's the text of the ruling.
This ruling may only be a temporary setback for the CRIA -- it talks about copyright holders "being robbed of the fruit of their efforts", and seems to give guidelines for better evidence collection practices for future litigation...
The Canadian government is planning on changing copyright law to take away many of our rights (luckily, the current minority government probably won't manage to do this).
This petition "is a way of letting Parliament know that you want to be considered and that you don't want your rights to be abraded every time the music industry's profits slip a little." Please sign it if you're Canadian and agree with it.
or maybe CAN's official's palms are not as well greased like there are here [US].
RIAA (and MPAA) need to get some criminal proof so they can use subpenoa's, otherwise, just pointing and saying 'gimmie' is not going to make the courts jump on their side.
P2P does not appear to be dying, as long as you lump bittorrent under that umbrella.
I'm suprised more people are not using services like http://fastmail.fm/ and http://www.shinyfeet.com/file sharing (well fastmail does not have sharing, but you can put small files into a public folder - shinyfeet is unlimited space/storage but no public, must be shinyfeetshinyfeet)
but I guess those services are too much like the old napster.
do you have shinyfeet?
Why canada? Why not start an ISP in a country with enough infrastructure to give you a good backbone, but so little law that the RIAA and it's equivelants cannot sue you? You provide a proxy for a nominal fee and downloaders and uploaders can proxy through you without fear of reprisal. You are the end of the line and not obligated to release any information about the next step.
I do security
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.
I can't wait until the music and hollywood industries wake up and start to sell their products in the way that people want to buy them. I'm more than willing to pay for my music but I'm not going to pay for a whole album when all I want is one song. It's kind of like going back to the 50's when the music industry was single driven instead of album driven. Right now we're between the old and new models of business - I can't wait until the transition is over.
Shh.
how do you know it is not being done already..
:-}
I believe it is not because it is too difficult for the average user. Until someone comes up with a proxy service (like someone commented a few mins earlier) and focuses on ease of use.
they could probably still install spyware, keyloggers, trojans and more - but get paid directly from the user
do you have shinyfeet?
Nothing, I suppose, if all the data remains in the said country. Go up North, eh, set up a server, and download the music to the proxy HDD to your heart's consent.
Try to transmit the data to the US, or bring the HDD from Canada into the US, though, and things would probably get illegal quickly.
The court explicitly overturned the previous decision that file sharing is not copyright infringement. That question, which some people thought had been settled, is now up in the air again. Read this analysis - and chalk up one more point against the Slashdot editors, because I filed a more accurate version of this story and they ran the misleading one.
Make me proud to be Canadian
In Soviet Russia, p2p rules the Court!
O wait, it's already like that, isin't it?
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.
If you use the word "stealing" to describe copyright infringement, then you're lying - it's a totally different section of the law. More importantly, however, Canadian law explicitly permits us to make private copies of audio recordings without paying additional royalties, because of the levy we've already paid in the price of the blank media. Part of the question in this case was whether that extended to "private" copies made over the Net.
You're also ignoring the "fair dealing" (fair use in the USA) exception, and several other exceptions, to copyright; copying without payment is actually quite often legal.
Looks like it's your lucky day.... :)
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
the bad news is that it has to be Rush.
Privacy doesn't include the right to hide your crimes. Aggreed. The record companies should be allowed to subpeona information if they suspect copyright infringement. I just have a problem with the "blank check" subpeonas the RIAA is currently using; they should have to go to a judge to the specifics of each case and have them issue a subpoena specifically for that case. Ever heard of "due process"?
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. Glad you clarified this. Now I know that anytime I checkout a CD from the library and listen to it, I'm "stealing"! Point is, copyright laws aren't quite as cut and dried as you make them out to be. I will agree with you on one point, though: unauthorized redistribution of copyrighted material is WRONG and rightfully should be UNLAWFUL. The point at which a "library" becomes an "unauthorized distributor" is an issue on which even reasonably intelligent and informed people may disagree.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"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."
Fine. Next time I download a song and like it (i.e. don't delete it), rather than buy a $30 CD I'll send the artists a dollar. It's more than the pennies they would have gotten from the RIAA anyway.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
I'd put it the opposite. Private corporations do not, and should not, have the right to invade your privacy without permission. IF you commited a crime against them, THEN they may have the police do something about it. The ruling seems to indicate they couldn't prove a crime has been committed!
The POLICE may perform an investigation, gathering data via well established laws and procedures. If they do not have sufficient evidence to get a warrant, then they cannot get the data, period, even for real crimes like murder. No other entity should get special priveledges. Personally I think it should be law that companies are obligated to protect customer data at all costs, up to subpoena or warrant.
The day private institutions begin acting as a police force with extra powers is the day we might as well turn in our hat. Theft is wrong, mmmkay, but here in the free world we let a few bad people get away so that no good people are hurt.
ISPs should still delete their logs, delete them early, and delete them often. Or are there now laws that require you to keeps logs long enough for the RIAA (or it's Canadian equivalent) to subpoena them?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"Privacy doesn't include the right to hide your crimes.Privacy doesn't include the right to hide your crimes."
Sharing my data privately is not a crime in any moral sense. Show me in your Bible or Koran where it says I can't copy ideas or information.
"You are NOT entitled to have a copy of that song you like so much. "
If someone is willing to share it with me, I absolutely have the right (as a human being) to accept a copy. Copyright is simply an abridgement of my right to use my own computer and my own data as I wish. "Copyright" is an anti-right, and it was never designed to enforce outmoded business models. (It was in fact designed to give book publishers monopolies in return for political favours.)
"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."
Nowhere does the law say I cannot receive a copy of a song someone gives me. If any such law exists in any place, it is certainly not universal, and does not apply in the jurisdictions in which the vast majority of the world's population lives.
If I'm not taking anything away from a person (and depriving them of that thing), then I'm not stealing. It might sound cliche here on Slashdot, but it's true. People who equate copying with stealing are committing a profound intellectual error.
If you really think copying ideas and data (the very cornerstone of human culture for 6000 years) is wrong, then feel free to hold yourself to those ideals. But please get off your high horse and stop trying to take away my rights. Live and let live.
"(if you aren't stealing the song, you are stealing the "right" to make copies)"
That's ridiculous. The original creator still has every right to make copies. I'm taking nothing from him. If he can't sustain a profit in an industry where the marginal cost of production is zero, that's his problem. Am I legally obligated to buy food from Safeway instead of growing vegetables in my own garden? Am I obligated to buy clothes from Sears instead of accepting hand-me-downs? Am I obligated to buy books instead of reading them at the library or borrowing from a friend? Of course not; even though all these activities arguably "steal" from the producers by the twisted logic of a corporate shill.
So please stop with the fraudulent "copying = stealing" arguments. Those of us who have woken up to the realities of the digital age and the basic rights of humans will never buy it.
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
(if you aren't stealing the song, you are stealing the "right" to make copies)
The right to make copies is inherent. It's the prohibition derived from IP law that is stealing the right to make copies. There is no obligation to obey unjust laws.
What?
You should also mention that we're socialist. Many Americans are genetically programmed with a strong aversion towards socialism (which they equate with communism) and big government. If you're considering immigration, please consult with your doctor first.
Oh and the other difference: in Canada we just say "please consult your doctor", in USA you must sign a 4-page contract that describes how "it's the first party's responsibility to consult their doctor and the second party shall not be held liable severely or jointly xor stately nor federally inhereto the first party thereof doesn't consult said henceforth doctor."
Cant have it both ways . Either the levy is going to pay for the copying or copying is illeagel so they cant be charged the levy on blank media. I have a feeling the recording groups wont want the levy on blank media stoped.
I trust Microsoft as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat
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."
By the way, there is no right to steal music or break copyrights. You are NOT entitled to have a copy of that song you like so much. 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. (if you aren't stealing the song, you are stealing the "right" to make copies)
I thought in canada you did have this right - as everyone who buys any kind of recording medium pays a corperate tax on it that goes back to the association coffers.
Nothing, I suppose, if all the data remains in the said country. Go up North, eh, set up a server, and download the music to the proxy HDD to your heart's consent.
Try to transmit the data to the US, or bring the HDD from Canada into the US, though, and things would probably get illegal quickly.
I think this statement misses the point - it is not about downloading being legal or not. The point is right now when someone downloads from P2P, they can be be easily (and legaly) traced to their ISP via their IP. Apparently if said ISP is in Canada, they cannot force ISP to give out your info. Thus legal or illegal, you are shielded.
However if you are transfering between two of your own systems, one in canada and one anywhere else in the world, there is no easy way for them to id you since you are not connecting to any P2P network now are you sharing data. So unless they tap your connection (probably illegal for them), it remains a private communication.
Now, on to another silly question - arent canadians charged extra tax on recordable media to offset recording industy "losses"? So if they are getting paid, how can they still go after P2P sharers???
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
It wasn't Canadians, it was the British. And it wasn't the Whitehouse until after it burned down, and some low-bid contractor "fixed" the building by painting it white.
You misunderstand the intent of this ruling; did you read the article?
The three-judge appellate court specifically reprimanded a lower court for commenting on the legality of file-sharing in Canada; the issue at hand is whether the recording companies have enough evidence to force ISP's to reveal their users real names, and NOT the legality of file-sharing. All the appellate court said was, "provide us with more evidence than you have now, and we'll reconsider your request." Read the part about the lawsuit being dismissed without prejudice.
This decisions is based entirely on privacy; why should an arbitrary corporation have access to my personal information based on unsubstantiated accusations? The court ruled correctly in requiring a threshold of evidence before forcing ISP's to reveal customer information. Of course you're correct in saying copyright violations are criminal, but that is not the issue here at all. An individual's right to privacy in business dealings (i.e., purchasing broadband) must be weighed against the amount of evidence presented by an accuser; the judges just said the recording industry didn't have enough.
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6357.cfm
The ruling allows companies to withhold information, but does not force them to do so. Some, like Vidéotron, already gave the info to the CRIA, and seemed happy to do it.
It seems the names were not revealed because, even though there were 1000s of shared files, there was no evidence anyone downloaded any of the files. So how does the music industry prove that piracy is being committed without getting a sort of "internet wiretap"? Private citizens certainly don't have this authority, so does law enforcement need to become involved. I fear that people abusing the internet and then cheering these rulings will result in laws that cause much more monitoring of internet traffic. For in the end, these people are criminals who are breaking the law.
Vote for Pedro
I say Cheers!
*clink*
If the Canadians have learned anything from the RIAA, they'll bribe their legislature to change the law so they can win next time.
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
This quote is interesting in this context. You left out his other famous quote from the same notebook:
"Whenever a copyright law is to be made or altered, then the idiots assemble."
Twain was a very vocal lobbyist and perhaps instrumental in getting the US to adopt international copyright protection. He was strongly in favour of perpetual copyright. (He was annoyed that publishers were ignoring American works in favour of English ones which were cheap, having no royalty costs) (since int'l copyrights weren't being respected by the publishers)
I say the quote is interesting in this context because Twain had been burned by Canadian 'pirate' publishers, who reprinted some of his early works without compensation. He wound up spending a few weeks in Montreal trying to meet a residency requirement so that he could claim a canadian copyright on the prince and the pauper.
Anyway -- the inclusion of a Twain quote detracts from your argument that copying is not stealing, specifically because I think Twain would disagree with you. In his view, copying *did* equate to stealing. He viewed even the existence of a limitation on copyright to be stealing. (see his address to Congress, for example. He argues that ideas are property). His intended meaning with that quote was that the existing copyright law wasn't strong enough to support his ownership rights as an author, not that having copyrights was nonsensical.
Now, on to another silly question - arent canadians charged extra tax on recordable media to offset recording industy "losses"? So if they are getting paid, how can they still go after P2P sharers???
The levy on recordable media is to account for the reproduction of copyrighted works, yes. However, it is only under the provisio that the end user of the copy perform the actual copying.
Case 1: You like a CD I have. You come over to my house, rip that CD on my computer, burn it onto another CD, and leave. No problem.
Case 2: You like a CD I have. I rip the CD on my computer, burn it onto another CD, and give it to you. Copyright infringement.
This is why the recording industry cannot go after downloaders. It is the end consumer of that music that is initiating the copying. On the other hand, uploaders, people who are pushing the file down, are arguably infringing copyright. Of course, we did have that court ruling which stated that leaving files in a shared folder on your computer is equivalent to leaving books next to a photocopier. The downloader is initiating the transfer, and the uploader is just a passive data store.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
Hey, I actually saw the Queen yesterday. She stills draws a croud of loyal colonials even in this day and age.
Of course she also brought rain with her, but I imagine we can use it.
Frylock: "We should have cloned twenties, Jackson wouldn't have given a fuck."
- Honesty is a tough thing.
-
{Typos mine: source: ISBN 0-8144-7197-8}-
Playing by the rules means living with an occasional setback.Don't establish your ethics by whatever everyone else is doing; everyone else is often not doing what's honest or right.
Stay the course on doing what's honest and right even though the world has declining values.
Teach your children well, not as Mrs Vera Benchley did.
-
Doing the right thing often means more work.Doing what's right and honest almost always brings a temporary setback.
Rewards for doing what's honest and right takes time to emerge.
Hang in there with what's honest and right even when you have to weather storms for doing so.
Sometimes those in charge don't see the ethical issue, and even if they do, change doesn't come easily.
-
Being ethical sometimes means running behind in the race.Don't define ethical issues by using the "either/or" conundrum. There are other options.
Define issues by what's right and what's honest.
Make decisions putting your values first.
Find a way to do what needs to be done without sacrificing honesty or doing something wrong.
Remember that doing what's honest and right will bring more work--but doing what's honest and right also brings the fruits of the extra labor.
-
Expect a little mockery for playing ethically.Let the sprinters pass you by; there's more to the race and more to winning.
Don't be enticed by short-term gains.
Sprinters falter; don't be discouraged as they pass you by.
-
Being ethical means you have to speak up.Expect mockery for doing what's right and honest
Endure the mockery;this too shall pass.
Garner strength during the mockery from knowing the eventual outcome for the mockers;you will win the race.
-
Sometimes the ethical route is opportunity knocking.When you see the issue (elephant), talk to your coworkers.
Don't let the elephant go so long that it causes damage.
The consequences of saying nothing are always greater than the consequences of speaking up.
-
The ethical finish first eventually, and with peace of mind.See doing what's right and honest as an opportunity, not a burden.
Think through the consequences of right and wrong and explore the opportunities that doing what's right offers.
-
Ethical indiscretions haunt the sprinters.Keep your eyes on your values and doing what's honest and right.
Don't be discouraged with the temporary setbacks and costs.
Finishing without baggage is the goal.
-
Success comes from doing what's honest and right.Always tell the truth; that way you don't have to worry or remember.
When facing a moment of truth, disclose and move on.
Remember the freedom of not being haunted by a falsehood.
View ethics not as a deterrent but an opportunity for success.
Remember the race has a nonlinear path and you may lose some opportunities if you fail to see what's right and honest as a means for succeeding.
Oh, come back, proud Canadians
To before you had TV,
No hockey night in Canada,
There was no CBC (Oh, my God!).
In 1812, Madison was mad,
He was the president, you know
Well, he thought he'd tell the British where they ought to go
He thought he'd invade Canada,
He thought that he was tough
Instead we went to Washington....
And burned down all his stuff!
And the White House burned, burned, burned,
And we're the one's that did it!
It burned, burned, burned,
While the president ran and cried.
It burned, burned, burned,
And things were very historical.
And the Americans ran and cried like a bunch of little babies
Waa waa waah!
In the War of 1812!
Now some hillbillies from Kentucky,
Dressed in green and red,
Left home to fight in Canada,
But they returned home dead
It's the only war the Yankees lost, except for Vietnam
And also the Alamo... and the Bay of... ham.
The loser was America,
The winner was ourselves,
So join right in and gloat about the War of 1812
And the White House burned, burned, burned,
And we're the one's that did it!
It burned, burned, burned,
While the president ran and cried.
It burned, burned, burned,
And things were very historical.
And the Americans ran and cried like a bunch of little babies
Waa waa waah!
In the War of 1812!
In 1812, we were just sittin' around,
Mindin' our own business, puttin' crops into the ground.
We heard the soldiers coming and we didn't like that sound.
So we took a boat to Washington and burned it to the ground.
Oh... we... fired our guns, but the Yankees kept-a coming,
There wasn't quite as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and the Yankees started running,
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, oh, oh....
They ran through the snow and they ran through the forest,
They ran through the bushes where the beavers wouldn't go.
They ran so fast, they forgot to take their culture,
Back to America, and Gulf and Texaco
So, if you go to Washington, its buildings clean and nice,
Bring a pack of matches, and we'll burn the White House twice!
And the White House burned, burned, burned,
But the Americans won't admit it
It burned, burned, burned,
It burned and burned and burned
It burned, burned, burned,
Now, I bet that made them mad
And the Americans ran and cried like a bunch of little babies
Waa waa waah!
In the War of 1812!
Okay, on the off chance that this is not just flamebait, let me
I may be wrong, but I believe that copyright is supposed to be something we choose to give creaters for a "short" period (7 years), and it's only point/intention is to get more material into the public domain.
The differences between the paraphrase above and what we have now (100+ years and the concept that they are entitled to these rights by God or Nature or something) has been stolen from us by wealthy leaches who can't create a turd without hiring the work out--through bribes and other quasi-leagal activity.
If you need an example, The Disney corporation is the greatest current offender, buying their way through laws to line the pockets of shareholders with items they purchased or stole from the real artists. This mockery does NOTHING to help the works get into the public domain, and these people should be tried for treason against the constitution of their country and treason against the people of the world.
Yes. Though confusing is an understatement. Misleading is closer.
Good in a "cops don't turn up on your doorstep after WH Smiths sold you some blank CDs" kind of way. If you only ever download "shared" content and never buy any you are what warez dudes would call a leech. Using P2P services to bypass bland conventional radio/marketing or to sample content (which can be patchy and variable at best) is quite acceptable IMO.
Actually, "leech" refers to downloading of content without giving back (e.g. clicking on banners, clicking on vote links, etc.) It is normally applied for excessive downloading (e.g. 2+ connections at once) but can be stretched to almost anyone.
The term you're looking for is "freeloader", where everything is done without paying money. It doesn't that the user won't support the site - it just means no money is paid.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here...
But the way I see it, all parties are corrupt.
Conservatives would give money and the country's assets away to their rich friends who were of "old money" and quite often foreign. (I'm thinking Mulroney and corporatization of Canada, Ontario tories and selling the toll highway to Spain)
Liberals are on the hook now for giving money away to rich friends who are of the nouveau riche and usually Canadian. (Chuck Gite might be french, but he's still Canadian)
The NDP would ideally give the money to the have-nots and labour unions.
The Bloc are like the NDP but they only care about Quebecers.
Given all that, I suppose I'd prefer a combination of whigs and NDP'ers. The money would stay in the country and not necesarily be all put in the hands of folks who'd race across the border for cheap smokes, booze and casinos.
Nah...
Biodiesel or even restaruant oil!
...to say that the lower judge shouldn't have said anything about file sharing being legal or not. Canadian law very clearly institutes a surcharge on recordable media so that the act of downloading is NOT A CRIME.
If it becomes a crime, it'll be because Canadian legislators forgot what they did last time, perhaps stimulated by some nameless freebies we'll never know about.
For now, this is over, but if the amnesiac Commons goes back on its own word, the ball game will start all over again. arggghhhh...ank
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
Correct if I'm wrong since I don't live in Canada. Don't you pay an extra tax on things like cd-r's, harddrives, etc. that goes to the music industry already because they could be used for copyright infringement. I say just get what you already paid for then.
ok, assuming that you are not really trying to be a troll:
theft is still theft
theft is theft, and it is always a crime, even small-time theft like shoplifting. the police lay charges, and you get a criminal record if convicted.
file-sharing is not a crime (unless it's on a large scale or done for profit). you can be sued, but not arrested/charged. therefore, it is not theft.
Ok there are plenty of people willing to argue that it's not illegal, but they're just being daft.
um, the canadian copyright act specifically says that downloading music for your own private personal use is 100% legal. money is collected on blank media, that *pays* the musicians for their work - so how can it be theft? who's being daft? you'll need a better argument than that, if you aren't really a troll.
the appeals court basically threw out the original judge's ruling that said that placing music in your shared folder on kazaa did not infringe copyright in canada.
it did uphold the ruling that the CRIA had insufficent evidence to show that the 29 people whose identities they wanted revealed, were actually the people who did the file sharing.
however, the court encouraged them to come back with stronger evidence, in which case they would grant the order to divulge the identities and allow them to be sued.
not sure how this is a "win" for file sharers.
Canadian citizens win court battle. It's not just filesharers that win when courts decide in favor of Average Joe.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
For every piece of recordable media sold in Canada, that includes hard drives, blank tapes, blank cd's EVRYTHING RECORDABLE, the music industry receives a comission.
Yep even if you just want to burn your photo's to disk, back-up your college work etc the music industry gets it cut.
http://www.ccfda.ca/subsections/fre_library.html
If they want Canadians to pay for downloaded music its time they gave that money back or stopped collecting it.
Until then Canadians have paid the copyright dues in the form of this blank media levy, even those who dont download music!
What this country really needs is an NDP government with a slight minority
Having lived in Manitoba most of my life, believe me: the last thing we want running this country is the NDP. They've practially ruined the province, ensuring it will stay as a rural backwater for decades to come. Winnipeg used to be one of Canada's biggest and fastest-growing cities, and now it hasn't changed in 30 years. Meanwhile, pretty much every other city in Canada over 100,000 people is growing. Businesses simply will not move to Manitoba, the taxes are insane.
That being said, I have to agree with "regressive conservatives". I'm about as right-wing as you get when it comes to economics, but for some reason the morons following Harper want to take Bush's lead and turn this country into the 1940s.
Thankfully, we still have at least one conservative leader who isn't a complete asshat - although Klein's stance on gay marriage still irritates me.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
The grey area in Canada is that every blank CD, tape, DVD, VHS, etc. has a music tariff on it. So, obtaining a copy of a song and burning it to CD could be considered legal since the compensation of the copyright holder was done when the CD was purchased. Eliminate the tariffs on blank media and then your argument might work for me.
The way this works (to my understanding) is that a person can copy a CD for personal use but you can't get someone to copy the CD for you. Now the question is who is making the copy when a song is downloaded from the Internet. Am I making the copy for personal use when I request the song (since the original file stays at the point of origin) or is the file sharer creating the copy? This is the modern version of the philosophic question about the forest and the tree.
Oh yay, we can pirate safely now in Canada!
Canadians have had the legal freedom to make private copies of music for their own use, regardless of the source of the copy, for many years.
Because it is 100% legal under the copyright act, and because musicians are paid royalties for their work (through the blank-media levy), it is not considered a "crime", "stealing", or "pirating". U.S. laws don't apply in Canada, sorry. well except marijuana laws. and we're working on that...
Generalization.
It does have to do with privacy. If you were on a P2P network, but either you didn't download anything illegal, or you didn't download anything period in that time period, you should not have to face accusiations of piracy. The way the industry has gone aquiring IP addresses and names, they made mistakes, and this helps end some of that... for now.
Not really the same at all. For one, the crime is copyright infringement, not theft. There is no involvement of stolen/lost tangible/intangible property, and certainly finding crime culprits online and offline are done differently.
Sorry, but #1 is #2 not #X, or in your case, theft, need we discuss this again?
Sorry, but under your logic, you eliminated legal/free music downloads from independent music artists. I knbow what you are *trying* to state, but if I enjoy some music from an artist who encourages downloading/sharing of his songs, I am damn right entitled to make a copy of that artists song(s) if it is his/her request.
So if I download free music from dmusic.com, I am breaking the law, when they put it up for free in the first place? This ladies and gentlemen is what I call a gross misinterpretation of the law. What makes it legal and or illegal is NOT compensation or lack of compensation, but permission, or lack of permission.
Sorry, I am stealing nothing. To steal, or theft as it is called requires loss of property, and what happens here does not deprive somebody of that property, which is why the issue of downloading copies of music falls under copyright laws instead of theft laws, and no matter what you say, you are wrong. The artist and/or copyright holder still has his/her legal copyright and legal rigth to make copies. You did not take that away.
Did you look up anything law related before typing this? It sounds like to me you pulled EVERYTHING you said out of your ass, judging by how RIAA propogated and legally inaccurate it is.
NEXT STOOGE!
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
It's obvious the downloader is creating the copy. They're the one searching for what they want, they're the one clicking on the link to download it, and they're the one moving it to their MP3 server when it's done. (Yes, I have an MP3 server. Sue me. Oh....wait.....)
Saying the uploader is making the copy is stupid. It's like saying when Chuck borrows Rob's CD and burns a copy on his own computer at his own house, that it was Rob who made the copy. All the uploader is doing is listing what songs he has. Just like displaying your CD collection in a CD tower at home, so any visitor can see exactly what you've got.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
It's JUST an expression.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot