Court quashes music industry bid for IDs

Canada's Federal Court has ruled against a motion which would have allowed the music industry to begin suing individuals who make music available on-line.

Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled Wednesday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association did not prove there was copyright infringement by 29 so-called music uploaders.

He said that downloading a song or making files available in shared directories, like those on Kazaa, does not constitute copyright infringement under the current Canadian law. globeandmail.com

via Boing Boing

And this excellent overview on Wendy's Blog (Wendy Selzer):

An Ottawa Federal Court has denied the Canandian Recording Industry's (CRIA's) demand for the names of alleged music sharers, on grounds that remind us why diversity in copyright laws is a good thing: Canada's got this one right.

The court ruled that plaintiffs had not shown that they had the right targets or that their targets infringed copyright (they failed to "establish a prima facie case against the unknown alleged wrongdoer").

• Downloading a song for personal use does not amount to infringement
• Placing personal copies into a shared directory is not "distributing" or "authorizing the reproduction" of sound recordings
• There was no evidence of knowledge, necessary to secondary infringement liability

Congrats to the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, whose intervention helped the court get there.

The court "cannot see a real difference between a library that places a photocopy machine in a room full of copyrighted material and a computer user that places a personal copy on a shared directory linked to a P2P service." The court also held that the CRIA had delayed its requests too long, presented too little evidence of methods for tracking users, and would have to reimburse ISPs if it were ever permitted discovery.

There's a thoughtful and 'unenthusiastic' response to this Canadian decision, and to Wendy Selzer's celebration of it, by Ernest Miller (Yale Law School) at Many2Many:

My first thought is that this is bad news for photocopy machines in Canadian libraries. If this ruling holds up and the Canadian legislature has to remedy the situation, I wonder whether photocopy machines in libraries will be exempted from the law as judges can't seem to distinguish them from P2P filesharing. ... The logic of the judge's decision does not apply solely to music, but to any copyrighted file. Software, film, video, everything that can be digitized is fair game. Is this the right solution? 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. Does Seltzer prefer a broad or narrow reading of this decision?