by , 11:00 AM EST, April 1st, 2004
You're going love this one: It appears that our Northern Neighbors can legally share copyrighted music via peer to peer. That's right. A Canadian judge ruled that is was not illegal to post or download music in Canada.
CNet News reports that the Canadian version of the RIAA, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) was handed a setback in court recently when a judge said that sharing music online appeared to be legal in Canada. Of course, the CRIA disagreed.
From the CNet New article, Judge: File sharing legal in Canada:
Canadian record labels had asked the court for authorization to identify 29 alleged file swappers in that country, in preparation for suing them for copyright infringement, much as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued more than 1500 people in America.
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.
"This has certainly stalled (the record industry's) current round of litigation, and...thrown into doubt whether there is infringement at all," said Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor who closely follows Canadian copyright issues.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), which brought the case, said it did not agree with the judge's ruling.
"We are reviewing the decision received today from the trial court and expect to appeal it," CRIA General Counsel Richard Pfohl said in a statement. "In our view, the copyright law in Canada does not allow people to put hundreds or thousands of music files on the Internet for copying, transmission and distribution to millions of strangers."
There's more information in the full article at CNet News.
We don't advocate stealing music, but we do believe a person has rights to the music he or she buys. The RIAA sees those rights as a threat and is not above gestapo tactics to crush those who see things differently. A judge even offering an opinion similar to one offered by the Canadian judge would put some fear in the RIAA, something we'd pay to see.
Of course, the differences between Canadian copyright laws and the laws of the US are so dissimilar as to make such an event unlikely, but we can hope.