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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."
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.
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.
"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 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
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.
"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."
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!
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.
A rts/swap050421.html
sorry, but that is completely incorrect. there are privacy laws that make it illegal for a business, like an isp, to give out personal information without a court order. the other isp's sent lawyers to argue against the granting of the court order that CRIA was seeking. videotron did not.
however, videotron did *not* give out any information, they only said they would be "delighted" to *if* they received a court order.
videotron's parent company owns a number of record label and media interests, and is a supporter of the CRIA.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/04/21/