Canada and copyright law, the revenge of the courts

CBC reports that Canadian courts have dealt a blow to the recording industry’s arguments that sharing music files breaches Canada’s copyright laws.

In a unanimous decision Thursday, the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the Canadian Recording Industry Association’s appeal of a March 2004 ruling that said ISPs like Shaw, Rogers and Bell did not have to reveal the names of 29 users accused of sharing thousands of music files.

See previous post about how this has implications for sharing of enivornmental data.

At this same time appellate courts move to protect ISPs, the Canadian federal government moves to amend the copyright law so as to quash file sharing. According to the article, this modification would force ISPs to take an active role in prosecuting file sharing.

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