Canadian Record Industry Presses ISPs in Court

An anonymous reader writes "'Internet service providers have neither an obligation nor, in some cases, the technical means to help the recording industry identify 29 alleged music pirates, a federal judge heard yesterday.' The article continues, 'Shaw Cable, the most defiant company among the pack, poked holes in CRIA's case and accused the music industry of planning an extended fishing expedition for the purpose of forcing individuals into costly settlements before cases ever get to trial. This is the same strategy used by sister organization the Recording Industry Association of America, lawyers argued.'"

Re:Small ISP

[detritus`]

Actually being on a small ISP leaves you way more open to harrassment by the various authorities, as your ISP probably doesnt have the legal funds or will to fight off the large well bankrolled organizations such as the CRIA. At least large companies like Shaw, Telus, etc. already have a plethora of lawyers just chomping at the bit to fight any legal challenges

Maybe its just me

[An-Unnecessarily-Lon]

But is there not a right to privacy? If the RIAA can spy onto your shared folder is that not the same as looking into your house or mail? Are those rights not protected by the law? Lawyer Help me out

Why are ISP logging anyway ?

[Anonymous Coward]

why are they logging anyway ? whats wrong with unticking
[ ] save log to disk
or send them to dev>null

if the logs didnt exist there wouldnt be anything to argue

also the ISP has not said they will refuse, from the article..
by being forced, at its own expense, to analyze and hand over subscriber information.

are they saying that they will hand it over if the RIAA pay them for the information ? re-imburse their expenses ?

the question is...

[Cynikal]

will the courts uphold the previous laws passed about fair use... we pay tarrifs on media as a result of the laws that give us the right to share and copy music.. you cant charge someone a fee like that and then sure them for excercising their rights.

Unlikely

[Hal The Computer]

The plantiffs (recording industry) would probably not be able ot show the judge that there are reasonable grounds for them to be able to anyalyze records of indivduals that are not associated with the lawsuit. If you are involved in a personal injury lawsuit, you can't subpoena the hospitals entire patient file.
Canada also has a privacy law [privcom.gc.ca].

Re:Maybe its just me

[dartmouth05]

You have a right to privacy, of course, but not when it comes to your shared folder. Why? Because it is shared.

This is very different from looking into one's home or mail. I am no RIAA apologist, but I certainly wouldn't fault them for looking at shared folders on P2P services and the like. When you share a folder, you've made the contents open and available to be downloaded or looked at by anybody.

It's the equivelent of putting a big sign in front of your house saying "Come in, one and all", or opening your mail and tacking it on a bulletin board. In the first example, anyone could walk right in, and in the second, anyone could step right up and read your mail. Why? Because you've made your house and mail public.

The same logic holds true with a shared folder--by sharing it, you've made it public.

Used CD stores the next to go?

[spyrochaete]

I haven't bought a new album from a retail record store in years and years. Whenever I desire a peice of plastic (which is frequent enough) I'll pick it up at a used store, earning the artist and label no money anyway. How long until second hand shops are shut down by CRIA?

Anyone who thinks Canada is freer than the States is full of crap. We are simply 1 or 2 years behind our big fat brother downstairs. We'll adopt every law they enact (file swapping) and maintain every nonsensical law they uphold (marijuana posession) until the end of time. Why? Because we don't want Dubya to drop a W-bomb on our various beaver hatcheries.

All hail America Jr., land of the slightly freer (until 1 year later).

In the mean time, keep doing what you do. Make a statement by defying the law. Protect yourself while you do it. Use PeerGuardian 2 [xs.tech.nu].

Nice to see some support from ISP's

[xot]

Whether Shaw Cable has a messed up network or they respect the users privacy, its nice to see ISP's stand up against the music industry for a change instead of whimpering in a corner.
At least they are not going out of the way to get some poor kid sued for a million dollars!

Re:Case on static IPs?

[iantri]

I'm sure Shaw must be able to track what dunamic IP was mapped to which username at any given point in time..

Re:I'm Not Canadian, Thank God

[orthogonal]

So how does this story affect 'My Rights Online'??

Damn slashdot editors think your rights are the same everywhere.

Because a precedent created anywhere -- but especially in Western democracies -- will be used as justification for the same legislation or rulings elsewhere.

It's a matter of record that on controversial issues, one nation's courts or legislatures will look to what is the prevailing opinion in other democracies -- witness some of the U.S. Supreme Court's various opinion on capital punishment, some of which make reference to the prevailing climate of opinion in Europe.

And it's not mere coincidence that the European Union and Australia is passing laws that look a lot like the DMCA; given world-wide trade, one nation will pressure another nation to bring its laws into conformance with the first's, or into conformance with some international treaty.

So wherever the bell tolls, whether in Canada or Germany or your own homeland, the bell tolls for you. It's in my direct interest to see that my neighbors' rights are secured in their countries, so as to provide a good example to the legislators and judges in my own country.

Re:why?

[LordK2002]

Because

1. Little Johnny may not know that that nice music player he downloaded is offering music for upload.
2. Little Johnny may know that he is offering songs for upload, but not realise that it is illegal.
3. Little Johnny may not know what "upload", "sharing" etc means, and just knows he has to have lots of shared files to get onto that cool music site.
4. You get the picture.

K

Re:An (almost) happy Shaw customer

[Curtman]

Makes me almost happy to put up with Shaw's mediocre mail servers

Trust me, as a former Shaw customer, and current MTS ADSL [www.mts.ca] customer, their mail servers could be a LOT worse. LOTS worse. My guess is spam probably has a whole lot to do with the situation, but the mail server here goes down for an average of 2 hours per day, and at times its been down for several days straight.

130 KB/s down and 20 up is terrible compared to what I used to get with Shaw too.

Shaw! I've learned my lesson! I'll be coming back soon!

Re:why?

[October_30th]

Little Johnny may know that he is offering songs for upload, but not realise that it is illegal.

In most western societies, ignorance of a law is no excuse for breaking it.

Re:Unlikely

[siegloffclark]

that would relate to a specific patient record - or at worst, a limited class of patient records. wouldn't take a big brain, or unlimited hours, to track it down. consider, however, trying to pin down the patient who walked into the er sometime between a wednesday and friday last august in one of two hospitals in new york. and the only thing you know about them is that they wore a jacket emblazoned with he number 16 and a name. and now imagine that you were a visitor to one of those er's during that time, and you loaned some guy your jacket. you were both caught on the hospital video system wearing a jacket fiting the description ... ever been the target of an investigation?

Re:why?

[MicktheMech]

1. Little Johnny may not know that that nice music player he downloaded is offering music for upload.
2. Little Johnny may know that he is offering songs for upload, but not realise that it is illegal.
3. Little Johnny may not know what "upload", "sharing" etc means, and just knows he has to have lots of shared files to get onto that cool music site.
4. You get the picture.

IANAL, but I don't believe #2 holds water. In Canada, ignorance of the law is not a defence. If Johnny knew he was uploading files making them publicly available the Mens Rea and Actus Reus are present, making him guilty. Provided of course that doing so is in fact illegal. I do believe that #1 and #3 would be legitimate defenses.