ISPs Win Canadian Music Downloading Case

KingFishKingFish
edited July 2004 in Science & Tech
Canada's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Internet service providers do not have to pay royalties to composers and artists for music downloaded by Web customers.
Companies providing wide access to the Web are merely "intermediaries" who are not bound by Canadian copyright legislation, the court said in a 9-0 ruling. At issue was an effort by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, or SOCAN, to force Internet service providers to pay a tariff. SOCAN also wanted to extend Canadian copyright law beyond the country's borders and apply it to offshore Web sites that serve Canadians.
This seems like a solid ruling. -KF

Source: Excite

Comments

  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited July 2004
    Beyond just the music issue, this ruling has all kinds of implications which protect ISP's from legal responsibility for content hosted or transferred via their networks. The news report I was watching this morning mentioned child pornography as an example. There were moves afoot to make ISP's responsible to monitor / prevent any child porn from being hosted or shard through their networks. As opposed as I am to child porn, that is just ludicrous. It's like making the post office responsible for people sending hate mail, or making the phone company responsible for people making harrassing phone calls. This ruling strengthens the ISP's position that they just provide a service, and cannot reasonably be expected to monitor every single usage of that service 24/7.

    All in all, a fair and just ruling.

    :canflag:

    Dexter...
  • KingFishKingFish
    edited July 2004
    I second that notion Dex...

    KF
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