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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."

16 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's what they told the recording industry.

  2. Lets Roll! by krbvroc1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!

  3. Its far from over though ... by Lanhdanan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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 :(

    1. 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)

  4. Consider immigration to the north... by grumpyman · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...where weeds are legal, gays can marry and music is free!

    1. 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

    2. Re:Consider immigration to the north... by Zeebs · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Take up winter sports(complaining about winter is the most popular). I'd rather pay the tax and get the healthcare and education system over keeping the money and watching civilization slip quickly out of view. If we could only peirce the corporate veil and remove coporate personhood all would be well.

      --

      Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
    3. 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.
  5. /. 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!
  6. text of the ruling by limber · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...

  7. Petition for Users' Rights by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  8. nice to see the gov's are not complete idiots by downsize · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?
  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. Re:Just to be anal by rainman_bc · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes but More than half of the British forces was made up of Canadian militia. I'd say that means Canadians burned it down in 1814.

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  12. The War of 1812 - Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie by Feztaa · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!