Canadian court rules P2P music sharing LEGAL!

[Prune]

From CBC article:

"No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorized the reproduction of sound recordings," von Finckenstein wrote in his 28-page ruling. "They merely placed personal copies into their shared directories which were accessible by other computer users via a P2P service."

Up yours, CRIA!

Canada: The real land of the free.

[bigparsnip]

Check out the date on that article, will you?

(not quite april 1st, but rather close, no?)

[Daniel-A]

the canadian court does'nt care about april fool. Great ruling!!!
Daniel

[Synapse]

Finally some common sense!

Hurray for Canada

[B.VDBOS]

Be careful, "the terrorist" might find a way to use the file transfer system somehow spread hate and destruction of the American race

[millwood]

it doesn't seem to mean a whole lot. Essentially, it said that having files open to a p2p is legal. what it didn't address, and what rmaa is going after, is that if it is legal to download those copy-righted materials.

I am kind of sympathetic to the argument that merely present on a p2p isn't illegal: for the same reason that a person left a copyrighted book on the sidewalks of Manhattan, availing it to grabs by others, isn't illegal.

but there are some foundamental differences between the two examples so it is hard to argue one way or the other.

[Prune]

what it didn't address, and what rmaa is going after, is that if it is legal to download those copy-righted materials.

Bullsh!t. It's been legal in Canada to download since December. And what the hell is RMAA?

[kelticwizard]

Actually, from what I have read so far about the actions of the RIAA, they are not really interested much ingoing after the people who are actually doing the downloading. They are actually interested in the people who put their songs in the "shared folder" and then are connected up to one of the file sharing networks.

Since the file sharing networks tell you-or used to tell you-that the whole purpose of the folder was to allow access of others to the file, I guess the RIAA figured that was an admission of intent, or something. Apparently the Canadian court did not agree.

I have heard very little about going after people just for downloading-only about those who put the song in the folder for others to download.

From The Source- a "news, art, entertainment and opinion weekly":

"To find the “thieves and pirates,” the RIAA uses a number of different methods. One is software that scans hard drives for specific music files such as the Eagles’ “Hotel California” and “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne. Once the software finds someone sharing those files, that person becomes a possible target.

Some files the RIAA looks for even have digital fingerprints secretly encoded into them as a tracking device created when the trade association went after Napster in 2000. The digital fingerprints mean the file was almost certainly downloaded off the Internet.

The RIAA also uses features within *****, ********, and some of the other software programs that allow users to view a list of all the files another user is sharing. Once the RIAA’s sleuths have found a computer sharing music files, the RIAA software records the Internet address associated with the computer."

http://www.tsweekly.com/archive/1_7_39.html

Of course, this decision applies only to Canada, and music sharers in other nations are just as open to lawsuits as they ever were.

[Prune]

WTF are you talking about? There's no RIAA in Canada. RIAA is a US organization and has no legal claim North of the border. If you had read the first post in the thread you'd have seen this discussion has nothing to do with the US.

[pinkmouse]

Language, Prune!