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Canadian High Court Says ISPs Don't Owe Royalties
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jun 30, 2004 10:21 AM
from the common-carrier dept.
from the common-carrier dept.
canwaf writes "According to the CBC, and the other guys: In a 9-0 decision, Canada's highest court ruled, despite the fact that ISPs provide the means for piracy, they are not liable for what people download. They continue in their decision that Internet access providers are not bound by federal copyright legislation. Coupled with an earlier story on Slashdot, this is a very good thing." Edward Scissorhands was one of many readers to link to the Globe and Mail's article, too.
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so they don't owe the queen? (Score:5, Funny)
This is a good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I download music and movies and (very occasionally) games without fear of reprisal, since the Supreme Court here actually interprets our law correctly, by reading both the letter and the spirit of the law.
One supports the other. If a movie/song is terrible, I delete it. If it's good, I buy it, and often, other movies/songs by the same artists. If you track my spending habits, my downloading is directly linked to my spending. I'm the same way with books, I hit the library and if I read something I know I want to read again, I buy it.
I know this is a rant, but I hope the rest of the world realizes that THIS IS HOW COPYRIGHTS SHOULD WORK!
Parent
Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why waste the time? (Score:5, Insightful)
ISPs are just carriers and they shouldn't have even had to waste the Court's time to show that.
Re:Why waste the time? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of us know that it's obvious, unfortunatelly there are groups which want to convince people that ISP are responsible.
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Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, this may sound like a troll, but it's basically true: Here in the US, most laws and court cases involving business are not decided on logic and right and wrong, they are decided on which lobyists have greased the right palms and preformed the best fellatio.
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Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Funny)
Time to make a run for the border!
they are decided on which lobyists have greased the right palms and preformed the best fellatio.
I'm sure there are some cunning linguists out there, too.
Parent
Re:Why waste the time? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because (in the US at least) ISP are not defined by the law to be Common Carriers.
A Common Carrier is required to carry whatever content is provided on a non-discriminatory basis. That means they don't get to drop something just because they don't like it (as ISP's routinely do with SPAM and such). But because they have to carry it (even if it may be illegal) they can't be held responsible for doing so.
This ruling could be read as a move toward common carrier-like status for ISP's. That could be good for people who want to pass MP3's around, bad for people who want SPAMers to not be able to fill their inbox with crud.
However, if the ruling had gone the other way, we might well have seen ISP's get a certified right to block SPAM, MP3's, and anything else they didn't like, including HTTP requests to competing search engines, and VoIP packets where the ISP isn't getting a cut of the call toll.
It's an interesting ruling, but the roulette wheel is still spinning, and the ball is still bouncing.
Parent
Re:Why waste the time? (Score:5, Interesting)
But unlike telcos, ISPs provide more than a wire. They provide services, such as email and DNS. Using your logic, I could see that an ISP, as a common carrier, would have to carry the spam, but as a service provider could then very well not deliver it. It's mildly similar to call-blocking features sold by the telcos. Sound reasonable?
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Common Carrier ISPs make a ton of sense (Score:5, Insightful)
It actually is simpler than that.
Define ISPs as common carriers (after all, in 99.999% of the cases that is effectively what they are, and any other course leads to a madhouse of government regulation and oversight).
Define SPAM to be illegal, just as SPAM faxes are illegal, and just as obscene and threatening phone calls are illegal.
Then, place enforcement where it belongs, with the authorities (who can require cooperation from ISPs), not the ISPs themselves, who should be in the business of providing connectivity and services, not enforcing the law.
Those services, as you correctly point out, would (and already do) logically include mail filtering software of varying quality.
Parent
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
The atmosphere's lawyer, Moria, had no comment, but whooshed out of the courthouse with a whistling sound.
Copyright Infringement!! (Score:4, Funny)
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Well, good and bad. (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, if prosecuting copyright violations becomes too difficult to be worth it maybe a better system will ensue?
Maybe I should move to Canada, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
1) Not hated by the world
2) Speak mostly English
3) Hockey
4) Weaker music industry lobby.
5) Lower Crime Rate
6) No Bushes
Cons:
1) Cold
2) Curling
3) French-speaking People
4) French-speaking People
Not much of a decision here.
Re:Maybe I should move to Canada, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot
0) Real Beer
Regards,
--
*Art
Parent
Re:Maybe I should move to Canada, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Maybe I should move to Canada, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Maybe I should move to Canada, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
7) Free health care
8) Polite people
9) Chicks can go around topless.
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Re:Maybe I should move to Canada, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
You have got to be kidding? I apologize on a weekly basis on behalf of Canada for allowing Celine Dion to wreak havoc on the world.
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Re:Maybe I should move to Canada, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
So when you're chasing beaver, nothing refreshes you better than a nice cold Molson Canadian.
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Re:Maybe I should move to Canada, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently you don't watch the CBC. French bashing and Anglophone bashing is 30% of the humour on our STATE-SPONSORED television network. Canadians don't tolerate racism? Apparently we tolerate people with no sense of humour though. I wonder which is worse.
BTW.. I would appreciate it if in the future you didn't presume to speak on behalf of me.
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ok, so the ISP thing didn't work... (Score:5, Funny)
CDR/CDRW discs: they facilitate recording pirated music;
Sound Card manufacturers: they facilitate ripping;
Loudspeaker makers: we can hear pirated music through this equipment.
My ears -- yes! sue my ears. They faciliate hearing this music!
Emm, I'm digging now, ehh; why not sew my lips shut too. I can whistle a tune without paying royalties.
See where this is going? DO YOU? DOOO YOU???
- Oisin
Terrible! (Score:5, Funny)
Good? This is horrible!
How am I to continue my suit against paper-makers and ink producers on behalf of book publishers?
Oh, wait, I can still do that in the "Land of the Free", the United States.
(It's the land of the free for corporations -- they can get away with anything. It's the land of the fee for taxpayers.)
Dear RIAA (Score:5, Funny)
The music is watermarked with a primitive technology called a 'jingle' that will help you identify which station it was.
Sincerely
Tod
Eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Eh? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Marijuana not legal in Canada - yet (Score:4, Informative)
not to mention bud is basically legal there!
If by "basically legal" you mean "in practice," then you're basically right. The police tend not to make much effort to prosecute for marijuana possession in Canada.
This is way off-topic, but I want to dispel a misconception. Conan O'Brien once mentioned on his talk show that "Canada's parliament is considering legalizing marijuana..." This was so inaccurate as to be totally incorrect. In fact, at the time, there was a senate committee report that recommended that parliament consider decriminalizing marijuana.
So it wasn't parliament, by which one typically means the House of Commons (the elected lower house), it was the Senate (the unelected upper house). And it wasn't even the whole Senate, but just a committee. They weren't "considering," it was just a report that made a recommendation. And nobody was talking of legalization, just decriminalization, the difference being that it's still not legal, but you just wouldn't get thrown in jail, nor will you get a criminal record for possession - just a fine, rather like a traffic violation.
Some time later, a decriminalization bill was proposed in the House of Commons, but I believe it was dropped when the election was called about a month ago, so there has been no movement by the government in terms of actual legislation. So marijuana possession is, officially, still quite illegal here.
But we actually have the funny single-platform Marijuana Party fighting for legalization here in Canada, so who knows... Maybe someday it will be legal.
Parent
Re:Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
In all honesty, the US was a much more open a free-market society until the last few years. Aside from the absolute hard-right turn taken under the Bush administration, the aggressive nature and consolidation of media companies in the last 5-7 years has really put a chill on the US society IMHO. Note: I realise that this started under Clinton too.
For me, there are a few significant events where the rule of law were circuvmented, or big business exercised a strong influence over the legislative bodies in recent times. These are having profound negative effects on American life and commerce.
1. Microsoft anti-trust. Found guilty, but government backs off on any significant penalty. IBM never got off so lightly, and the results were the PC revolution.
2. Consolidation of media ownership. Especially regarding radio. Less diversity = less room for competing opinions. More big business = more big business attitudes reflected in editorial biases.
3. Abuse of copyright/patent system. Think EOLAS, think SCO, think Mosano, etc. Combined with a culture of litigation, this really makes you wonder if the US is unconciously abandoning its heritage of innovation. The money is compensating for this pull downwards, but will this always be the case?
Unequivocally the US leads the North American economy...Canada has, to a great extent, benefited from this for years. But sometimes we wake up, look in the mirror, and wonder "What the hell are the neighbours doing now???". I think that, lately, our values expressed in our judicial and legislative system are more in line with what Americans expect than their political leadership have provided.
Parent
Double dipping attempt.. (Score:5, Informative)
In
Screw 'em
This was brought forward by SOCAN ... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a lobby for the Canadian recording artists. They are supposed to be compensated for illegal copying, in exchange for a much more lenient definition of "legal" copying in our laws than in the USA.
Of course, like all Canadian programs, it ends up creating a huge government-paid organization to police this whole subsidy. Can't really say if this is better or worse than clogging up the courts, as is the case in the States.
It's so logical (Score:5, Interesting)
Just like gun manufacturers provide the means for killing but are not liable for what people do.
Can anybody explain though why the courts overturned the request from the music industry to have the ISPs turn over customer's identities? I agree that was a Good (TM) development, but it doesn't seem to fit into my gun analogy.
If the gun was used in a crime, law enforcement could force the company/dealers to turn over gun/owner/buyer information. Maybe it's because it's not law enforcement requesting the information, but deep-pocketed private parties seeking it.
Re:It's so logical (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it does fit. Your prejudice is what prevents you from seeing it immediately. (See below.)
If the gun was used in a crime, law enforcement could force the company/dealers to turn over gun/owner/buyer information.
This is the prejudice. You're assuming that because someone made a file avaliable, that a crime was committed, where in reality, that is not so clear. The judge said as much in the ruling.
It's not the case that the 'gun' was used in the crime, but that the courts weren't convinced that a crime occurred at all. The CRIA said "ISPs are hiding people who are illegally trading our files!", and the court responded with "no, they're protecting the identity of people who are trading files, but it's entirely possible that trading is not illegal - prove that, and then we'll talk."
Parent
But Taxing Recordable Media is OK? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this happen anywhere other than Canada?
Re:But Taxing Recordable Media is OK? (Score:5, Interesting)
You could argue that the government shouldn't tax gas to pay for the roads, because then they're unfairly taxing people who have gas lawn mowers, snowmobiles, jet ski's etc.
However, both of these methods of taxation are based on the idea that your privacy is more important than 100% fair taxation. For instance, I heard that in some northern U.S. state they were discussing installing GPS tracking units in vehicles to charge people based on how far they drive their vehicles, because that was a fairer way to charge a usage tax. But, who wants the government tracking their movements?
Similarly, the idea with the CD levy is to allow copying for personal use, but charge a fee to copiers of copyrighted work, and use that to pay the artists. To fairly implement this tax, it would mean you'd have to track each person and what they're copying. You run into the same issue - privacy. There is obviously a tradeoff, and I'm glad that the Canadian government seems to continually place privacy as a higher priority. I'm willing to pay a price to keep my privacy.
The other alternative is to ban all copying, even for personal use, remove the levy, and try to get the police to enforce an unenforceable law. That doesn't look to sweet either.
If you're going to complain about the levy, then at least come up with a workable alternative that doesn't screw somebody else.
Parent
I wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
Common Carrier means non-discriminatory, usually. If some content is restricted, and other content is not restricted, you stop being a common carrier.
Asking your opinion... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Asking your opinion... (Score:5, Interesting)
Move to Toronto if:
1) You have money
2) You enjoy money
3) You like hearing people talk about money
Move to Montreal if:
1) For you, money is secondary to living
2) You speak at least a bit of French
3) You like looking at gorgeous women
4) You enjoy a good party
5) You aren't offended by stripclubs, prostitutes, foul language, or loud noises...
6) You want to see diversity and eccentricity, not conformity and safety
It's pretty obvious which one I'd choose...
Parent
Big Glass of STFU (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes customers do not understand (Score:4, Interesting)
Intent (Score:5, Interesting)
If we start accusing people of crimes for aiding the ability for another to perform a crime, we might as well throw everyone on the planet in jail. How many people does a terrorist interact with in his/her life? Is the father at fault for teaching the kid about money, whereupon the kid learns knowledge about how to abuse the system to become rich? How can possibly prove that the father had "intent" to teach the son how to do something illegal? You can't. That's why the person is the one who is blamed for their own action in breaking the law (as well as any obvious people who contributed directly to the act.)
Further, what is blamed of a person is the action they take, not anything which leads up to the action (even the person's own thinking.) Recall the lesson to be learned by the movie/book Minority Report: though a person may show all the signs which establish intent to perform a crime, that does not mean they are guilty until they actually perform a crime. I may walk down the street and think about having sex with a woman I see walking next to me, but it's not rape until I actually go up and try to rape her.
The problem here is that the Internet is designed for free speach, not for law or copywrite enforcement. ISPs are being targeted becuase they have a means to enforce laws. But enforcing law is not the responsiblity of an ISP. ISPs neither have the physical means to enforce copywrite nor the mandate to do so. Let the FBI create a Net Force division a la Tom Clancy, and do their own copywrite enforcement. Attacking ISPs (or universities, or any other group other then a law enforcement group) is not the answer.
Copyright violation never hurt anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Fact?? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is like saying "despite the fact that air provides the means for shouting an obscenity"
Good news for now (Score:5, Informative)
Now parliament is out, an election was just held, and the same Liberal party is back in power (minority) with a loose coalition with the NDP party -- who quite strongly supports ratifying WIPO. So I fear that we're going to see Canadian government ratify WIPO, bringing in DMCA-like legislation into Canada. Check out the Digital Copyright Canada forums [digital-copyright.ca] and get involved if these privacy rights concern you. There is also a national petition for user's rights [digital-copyright.ca] that you can sign if you are concerned about all these 'special laws' for digital media. Remember that we live in a digital world, but the general public does not realize this. Placing strange restrictions on digital information is just hurting ourselves, and our own industries.
Re:Good precedent (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Good precedent (Score:5, Informative)
Not "any kind". Only musical audio recordings (no spoken word is permitted), and only the person doing the copying is permitted to use the recording (so you can copy your friends shit, but he can't copy it and give it to you).
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Re:Good precedent (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Good precedent (Score:5, Informative)
It is pretty hard to overrule the SUPREME COURT.
As it usually does, the Canadian Supreme Court has made a sensible ruling here.
Speaking of CDRs, as a Canadian I pay levies (which are forwarded to the record companies) on all blank media that I purchase, so as far as I'm concerned I'm ALREADY paying for my right to copy music, even if it comes from the internet. Its a relief that my ISP won't be forced to contribute to that racket as well.
Don't forget that most of that money winds up going to Bryan Adams and Celine Dion anyway (I'll remind everyone here that the Canadian government has already apologized for Bryan Adams on several occasions, so please lets not start that discussion again!)
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Re:Good news (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Got news for you - the entertainment industry already knows that. That's why they're filing these lawsuits.
The music industry had a stranglehold on music distribution, which gave them the ability to abuse artists as much as they want ("You don't want to sign this contract? Fine, you'll never be able to make money from your music.")
The internet changed all that. It's now becoming possible for an independent band to market their music to a worldwide audience.. and so now the music industry has competition, and they're desperately trying to extend the life of their business model as long as possible.
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