Canada file swapping case opens
p2pnet.net News:- It started today – the case Big Music is loading up in Canada as part of its continuing attempt to gain total and exclusive control of how people everywhere download, upload and share music online.
When it opened in February, the man who’s hearing it – Justice Konrad von Finckenstein – described it as “fascinating“.
It’s being brought by Big Music’s CRIA against Canadian online music lovers and Big Music means, of course, the Big Five record labels which have characterised 29 people as “high-volume” file sharers.
Now the music industry wants to take names – via IP addresses held by Canadian ISPs.
The CRIA is the Canadian Recording Industry Association, owned by the major labels. Through it, they’ll try to turn Canadian file sharers into a criminal class, as they’ve been able to do to music lovers in the US and elsewhere.
Its American equivalent, the notorious RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), recently added a further 531 people to its growing list of music lovers it wants to sue because it claims they’ve been sharing unauthorised music.
The major labels – all based outside of Canada and four of them on different continents altogether – will try to convince von Finckenstein that it’s reasonable for him to issue an order which they’ll then use to force Canadian ISPs into identifying users whom they claim are sharing unauthorised music files online through p2p applications.
Leading the fight for the RIAA is Richard Pfohl who, boasts the CRIA, “served Counsel to US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Technology, and to Senator Dianne Feinstein. He practiced for four years with the internationally recognized Washington D.C. firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding, where he helped establish the firm’s Internet and electronic commerce law practice.”
Right behind him is CRIA president Brian Robertson, “inducted into the Canadian recording industry’s Hall of Fame”.
In the red Maple Leaf corner, Canadians are getting ready to take Big Music on.
A 14-year-old Toronto student has launched CRIAwatch to report on Big Music’s attempts to repeat its American sue ‘em all campaign in Canada.
“I started CRIAwatch because I was concerned that not enough people were informed about CRIA,” he told p2pnet. “Nobody that I knew was aware that CRIA was attempting to get the identities of online music uploaders to sue them. I couldn’t find any other sites that focused on this problem, although i did find CanFLI soon after registering my domain.
“It should be interesting to see what CRIA throws at us. I’m ready to keep track of it.”
CanFLI is Canadian File-sharing Legal Information Network, set up by two Canadian law students, “to ensure that Canadians have the resources they need to confront lawsuits brought against them by the CRIA. We collect and distribute relevant information about Canadian copyright law, privacy law, and the procedure of civil actions.”
It’s also already started collecting money to, “assist in the legal defence of Canadians accused of copyright infringement by the Canadian Recording Industry Association”.
The effort is being managed by the Information Technology Law Society (ITLS), a student club under the Common Law Students’ Society.
Stay tuned …
[p2pnet is based in Canada - Ed]
