Originally published June 13 2005
Canada court rules privacy rights outweigh music industry's copyright claims
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A Federal Court of Appeal in Canada has refused to unmask 29 people the recording industry accused of unlawfully sharing thousands of music files. The court said that privacy rights must supersede the record labels' copyright claims, stressing that ‘technology must not be allowed to obliterate’ intellectual property rights, but ‘the potential for unwarranted intrusion into individual personal lives is now unparalleled’. The ruling blocks Canadian recording industries from following the US strategy of suing people who share files on the Internet.
A Federal Court of Appeal in Canada has rejected a bid by the recording industry to unmask 29 people accused of unlawfully sharing thousands of music files.
The court, reports CNET News, upheld a lower court's ruling that said privacy rights must supersede the record labels' copyright claims, at least in 'the early stages of this case'.
The court stressed that 'technology must not be allowed to obliterate' intellectual property rights, but 'the potential for unwarranted intrusion into individual personal lives is now unparalleled'.
The ruling is not the end of the matter.
Instead, it effectively lays out what kind of legal standard the Canadian Recording Industry Association must meet in future lawsuits against accused peer-to-peer pirates.
The ruling, says a report in The Globe and Mail, effectively blocks the Canadian recording industry from following the US strategy of suing thousands of people who share files on the Internet.
Lawyers for the major record labels focused on 29 Internet addresses for people who had allowed thousands of songs to be swapped on-line.
The companies tried and failed to convince the court at the time to make Internet service-providers reveal those people's names and addresses so that the record labels could sue them.
Many people believe that Canadian copyright law is stuck in the days of cassettes and LPs, hampering those having to interpret the law in an era when music can now be downloaded, uploaded and sent instantaneously over the Internet.
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