The Canadian Recording Industry Association plans to appeal a Federal Court of Canada ruling yesterday that not only denied CRIA's request to force ISPs to turn over some customer records of alleged file-swappers but also said downloading and uploading in Canada do not infringe copyright. The link to my report on last night's CTV National News report on this is here. You can also check out my colleague Keith Damsell's report in this morning's Globe and Mail.
In addition to the appeal, look for the record industry in Canada to engage in some serious lobbying and public relations work with the goal of convincing Ottawa lawmakers to change copyright laws to be, perhaps, more like those in the U.S., where record companies have had great success suing what it calls music pirates.
CRIA's issued a short statement yesterday, vowing to continue to fight against free download.
I interviewed lots of people about this yesterday (some of which is in the CTV news item), but I will try to add more comments from those I talked to later today.
I'll also try to post links from the blogosphere as I come across reaction to his story;
- Here's Tim Bray: “I would just totally love if it I could post the occasional excellent piece of music here, and I bet it would drive business to the artists and their published works; and I?d love it if some of the other people whom I?ve gotten close to via their writing were able to share some of their faves with me, too.”
- Here's Mark Evans: “To be perfectly blunt, the music industry was badly spanked yesterday….”
- The inevitable Slashdot free-for-all
- Michael O'Connor Clarke: “…Another example of the Canadian judiciary demonstrating less willingness to roll over at the request of the big entertainment industry concerns…”
- Here's Wendy Seltzer: “…Congrats to the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, whose intervention helped the court get there..”
- Here's Ernest Miller: “…Now, the CRIA obviously did a terrible job putting together their case. But if the court basically ruled that they can't put together any case for a large number of filesharers, copyright is in serious trouble. ”
- Here's David Weinberger: “… a Canadian judge has made, in a nutshell, all the right decisions about file sharing and copyright…”
You wrote: “but also said downloading and uploading in Canada do not infringe copyright.”
In my understanding, the court said that uploading does not infringe copyright. Downloading was not at issue as it was only uploaders who were being sued.
The judge compared making files available via P2P to having a photocopier in a library full of copyrighted materials. Just as people using that photocopier may be infringing on copyright, downloaders may infringe on copyright — the point is that in either case the person providing the means to do so is not infringing on copyright.
Hi Winston —
Thanks for the feedback. You're right: Uploading was indeed at issue. While CRIA wasn't thrilled about downloaders, it targeted uploaders, folks who had 1,000 songs and then some in their shared KaZaa directory.
But the judge in this case passed judgement on a whole range of things. Here's a quote from paragraph 25 of the ruling, in which the judge affirms an earlier ruling by the quasi-judicial Copyright Board of Canada: “…Downloading a song for personal use does not amount to infringement.”
Then, in subsequent paragraphs, the judge goes on to say that placing files in a shared directory does not constitute uploading.
There's a text-based (rather than scanned) PDF of the ruling at http://www.fct-cf.gc.ca/bulletins/whatsnew/T-292-04.pdf (I assume the “whatsnew” means that this is not a permanent URL)