Canadian Court Rules in Favor of File Sharers

In a suit between the Canadian music industry and 29 John Doe defendants, a Canadian Federal Court ruled (pdf) Wednesday that ISPs could not be required to provide the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the defendants. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein denied the music industry's motion, in part, because of a lack of evidence of copyright infringement.

"No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorized the reproduction of sound recordings. They merely placed personal copies into their shared directories which were accessible by other computer user [sic] via a P2P service."

Finckenstein went on to say, "I 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 mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution."

The Canadian music industry plans to appeal.

More here. And here.

Posted by Aaron Perzanowski at March 31, 2004 08:02 PM | TrackBack