Canadian Courts Shoot Down Recording Industry Lawsuits

Legal Issues

from the not-enough-evidence dept

There’s been a big commotion up in Canada concerning an attempt by the recording industry to get names of those they accuse of file sharing. Like in the US, the various internet service providers didn’t believe they should just give up the names. Now, it appears, a Canadian Federal Court has agreed. In fact, the court ruled that the recording industry doesn’t have enough evidence to show that the individuals in question actually broke the law. They point out that just downloading a song or leaving it in an open shared directory does not prove actual copyright infringement under current Canadian law. You can bet the industry is trying to change that law. However, it does raise the very important question about the point at which copyright infringement occurs. Is just leaving a file in an open directory infringement?