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Despite Ruling, Canadian Record Industry to Begin Suing File-Swappers

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 16, 2003 - 5:02am.
Toronto -- Canada's National Post reported on Tuesday that, despite a recent ruling from the Copyright Board of Canada that said downloading media from the Internet is legal, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) plans to begin suing peer-to-peer file-swappers in the country early next year. The CRIA's Brian Robertson told The Post that the legal action would target those who upload songs to file-sharing services like Kazaa -- much like the hundreds of suits filed against U.S. citizens by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "We've gone through a process, and spent $1 million on a value-of-music education campaign," Robertson told The Post. "But the industry continues to be devastated by file sharing. It is regrettable that we'll have to take this action, but we've been forced to." Legal experts predict any copyright infringement lawsuits against Canadians will be more cumbersome for the industry there, as Canada lacks the streamlined subpoena process laid out in the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which the RIAA has used to reveal the identities of file-swappers kept by their Internet service providers.
tags: Canadian | File-Swappers | . Record Industry |