Special Report: Federal Court of Canada Dismisses CRIA's Motion For Disclosure In File Sharing Suit

In a highly anticipated decision, the Federal Court of Canada today dismissed the Canadian Recording Industry Association's (CRIA) motion to compel several Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to disclose the names of customers who traded music on the Internet. In dismissing CRIA's motion, the Court came to three key conclusions:

• CRIA did not make out a prima facie case of copyright infringement;
• CRIA did not establish that the ISPs are the only practical source for the identity of the P2P pseudonyms; and
• CRIA did not establish that the public interest for disclosure outweighs the privacy interests of the ISP customers.

With respect to copyright, the Court stated that copying a song for personal use does not amount to infringement. Therefore, individuals in Canada are free to copy music from CDs or tapes or download tunes from the Internet and save them on their own computers. Copying files and saving them in shared directories on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network using software such as Kazaa is not copyright infringement. Referring to the recent Supreme Court decision of CCH Canada Ltd. v. Law Society of Canada, 2004 SCC 13, the court said: "I cannot see a real difference between a library that places a photocopy machine in a room full of copyrighted material and a computer user that places a personal copy on a shared directory linked to a P2P service." The Court concluded that the mere placement of personal copies of music files in a shared directory which can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution. There must be a positive act by the owner of the shared directory, such as sending out the copies or advertising that they are available for copying. On the privacy front, the court said it must balance privacy rights against the rights of other individuals and the public interest. Privacy laws cannot be used to protect a person from the application of either civil or criminal liability. Although the Court agreed that CRIA has a legitimate interest and is entitled to protect against infringement, it ruled that the privacy concerns outweighed the public interest concerns in favour of disclosure, given the serious possibility of an innocent account holder being identified. For more information, see: http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/03/31/canada/download_court040331. Summary by: Colin Adams