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Canadian recording industry appeals court decision on uploading songs
i love the part where mp3 sharing is compared to a photocopier in a library 
http://www.canada.com/vancouver/the...45-f888268923e5
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ANGELA PACIENZA
Canadian Press
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
TORONTO (CP) - The Canadian music industry is fighting a decision that endorsed music swapping on popular sharing services such as Kazaa.
In a five-page notice of appeal filed Tuesday in Federal Court, the Canadian Recording Industry Association argued current copyright legislation unequivocally prevents people from freely copying or downloading songs from the Internet.
The association wants the court to force five Internet service providers to make known the identities of 29 so-called song uploaders currently only known by their online aliases.
"In our view Canadian copyright law doesn't allow people to make copies of hundreds or thousands of songs that belong to other people and to put them out on the Internet for copying and distribution globally," said lawyer Richard Pfohl, representing most of the country's music labels including BMG, home of Avril Lavigne, and Universal, home of Nelly Furtado.
"It's a critical issue for our industry because those sorts of activities are having a devastating effect on our industry."
But in Justice Konrad von Finckenstein's March 31 ruling against CRIA, he said the group had no legal entitlement to the identities.
He compared the action of keeping songs in a shared directory on a home computer to a photocopy machine in a library.
"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," he wrote.
The ruling was hailed as a triumph for the privacy rights of Internet users and a major setback for the music industry's battle to fight music file sharing. The industry says retail sales of music are down more than $425 million since 1999.
In its appeal document, CRIA argues it has grounds for appeal because the "judge made serious and reviewable errors of law, made overriding and palpable errors in his assessment of the factual record before him, and, in the end, purported to exercise his discretion on improper and irrelevant bases, and in a manner of excess of his jurisdiction."
Four of the five Internet service providers - Bell Canada, Shaw Communications, Telus Communications and Rogers Cable - had argued in court that they weren't compelled to hand over the information because privacy legislation protected the identities of their customers.
Saying it too was concerned about piracy, Videotron hadn't fought the court order but the company is obliged under privacy legislation to have a court order before handing over client information.
Since last month's ruling, government officials including the prime minister have weighed in on the topic. Paul Martin made a stop at the Juno Awards to support the music industry calling it "an incredible part of our sovereignty . . . we're not going to let that be jeopardized."
Heritage Minister Helene Scherrer has also promised to punish music file sharers. She has said that her department, in tandem with Industry Canada, plans to draft legislation to amend a loophole in the Copyright Act that permits music downloading.
She also wants the federal government to ratify two international treaties that protect the ownership of copyright materials. If signed, CRIA would have new legal backups in Federal Court.
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