Canada’s Federal Court in Toronto today (March 31) ruled against a motion by the Canadian Recording Industry Assn. (CRIA) that would have allowed the body to begin suing individuals who upload unauthorized music to file-sharing sites.
The CRIA filed its motion Feb. 11 against five Canadian-based Internet service providers, asking the court to force the companies to hand over the names and addresses of 29 suscribers who allegedly had shared a “high volume” of songs in November and December 2003.
In his 28-page ruling, Justice Konrad von Finckenstein said the CRIA did not prove there was copyright infringement by the 29 alleged uploaders. He also ruled that downloading a song or making files available on peer-to-peer networks does not constitute copyright infringement under current Canadian law.
“No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorized the reproduction of sound recordings,” Von Finckenstein wrote. “They merely placed personal copies into their shared directories which were accessible by other computer users via a P2P service.”
Says CRIA president Brian Robertson, “We believe we put forward a strong case for copyright infringement. We remain committed to our plans to enforce the law against unlawful file sharing. We expect to appeal.”
