The Canadian Recording Industry Association says it will appeal a controversial court ruling earlier this month that seemed to suggest that, in Canada anyhow, sharing music on the Internet is not illegal. The record industry will argue that Federal Court of Canada Judge Konrad von Finckenstein made several legal errors in his precedent-setting judgement. Canada's record industry is attempting to sue 29 Canadians for illegally uploading music files to the Internet.
“In our view, Canadian copyright law does not allow people to make copies of hundreds or thousands of musical recordings for global copying, transmission and distribution to millions of strangers on the Internet,” said CRIA's lawyer Richard Pfohl (pictured)
“This appeal is important for virtually all Canadian intellectual property owners,” said CRIA President, Brian Robertson. “Any owner of intellectual property that can be digitally transmitted has a stake in this appeal process.”
CRIA claims that retail sales of recorded music in Canada have decreased by $425-million since 1999 and that, in the last 12 months, record companies operating in Canada have laid off 20 per cent or more of their staff.
I was not filing on this story but my Globe colleague Jack Kapica has this report.