Is file sharing legal in Canada?
by Ken Porter
On Tuesday of this week, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) announced their intention to launch lawsuits against 247 people who share music on P2P networks in 4 countries; Germany, Denmark, Italy, and Canada.
The first step in the Canadian case, was to force Canadian ISPs to release the names of 29 of their customers involved in 'sharing' music.
But the judge denied that request. In a far-ranging decision, the court further found that both downloading music and putting it in a shared folder available to other people online appeared to be legal in Canada.
All you downloading hosers out there be careful; this decision will most certainly be appealed.
Comments
Here (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/46193) there is another (even though German) notice about the ruling. I like it in general and I support it, no doubt. But the arbumentation that the users of P2P software don't announce that they're sharing music files is not exactly correct, I'd say. The P2P software makes the library contents available to a public directory which is beign searched efficiently by other P2P clients. To me, that sounds pretty much like a way of communicating the availability of the files for download, doesn't it?
they can appeal, and probably will, but i doubt it will change anything to this rulling. aside from the blatant fact that the IFPI is being pushed by the RIAA in order to sue outside US borders, Canada ruled late last year that file-sharing is not illegal, this judge is also sticking to that logic and extends it to the 'copyright files in publically-accessible folders', and until the copyright law is re-written (whether it needs to be or not). In any case, be it a short-term victory or an appaulling decision, hosers always enjoy replying to their neighbour with a tongue-in-cheek rulling - as in 'dont try to re-write our laws for your benefit.
The Stupid RIAA! SO what if they lose sales because of file Sharing! They get way too over paid anyway and even with file sharing, they still get over paid! I am outraged that people in the U.S. are actually being sued because they didnt want to pay 25 bucks for a CD! maybe if CDs wernt so god damn expensive, people wouldnt file share. Right now, i am proud to be a canadian!
And as for microsoft, complaining that they lost over 5 million dollars in purchases because of file sharing, Stop your Fuking whining! Your a MULTI-BILLION dollar corperation! Why do you even care about 5 million dollars?!
