TORONTO – Down Under, Kazaa and other like services are now illegal, and the Canadian recording industry would like to see the same moves here.
A press release on Labour Day celebrated an Australian court ruling which effectively outlaws free (or thieving) file-sharing service Kazaa and other such counterparts.
“The Federal Court of Australia today ruled that Kazaa is an illegitimate business that deliberately profited from mass-scale copyright infringement,” says the release from the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA).
The judgment, coming 10 weeks to the day after the unanimous United States Supreme Court ruling against the file-swapping operator Grokster, “is one of the most significant court actions against Internet piracy since the shutdown of the original Napster in 2002 and helps to lay down the law for the new generation of unauthorized peer-to-peer operators,” says CRIA.
Now, if the record industry could just get Canada – long, and still regarded as a file-swapping safe haven – to do something to strengthen its Copyright Act.
"Courts and legislators in Canada and around the world are sending a powerful message that unauthorized file-swapping is illegal, and they’re taking decisive action to stamp it out," says CRIA president Graham Henderson in the release.
"Today’s court decision is a wake-up call to Canadians who continue to engage in illegitimate downloading and should also send an important message to Parliamentarians in Ottawa debating new copyright rules."
“Kazaa is one of the largest and most widely known Internet piracy operations, with millions of users worldwide. Today’s judgment against Kazaa follows successful actions around the world against operators of servers hosting other leading peer-to-peer services, including eDonkey, BitTorrent and Direct Connect,” says the release.
"Illegitimate file-swapping services are on the run,” adds Henderson. “The message to Internet pirates is simple: ‘You can run but you can’t hide. Go legitimate or face the consequences.’
"We’re grateful that an Australian court has benched Kazaa… In other countries, legal music downloading services are thriving, with legions of consumers attracted by the convenience, selection and high quality that are provided. By contrast, Canada’s legal digital music sales continue to be hamstrung by antiquated copyright laws and widespread Internet piracy,” Henderson continued.
“Digital sales in this country run at one-half of one percent of US levels, but should be in the 12 to 15 percent range given relative broadband penetration in the two countries."
An Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report released in June of this year found that Canada has the highest per capita rate of unauthorized file-swapping in the world. Canada has been reported as having the second highest level of broadband penetration in the world.
Legislation introduced by the federal government this spring and scheduled for debate this fall will have an effect on this, says the release, but only if the law that finally makes it onto the books is robust.
"We cannot end up with a watered-down ‘WIPO Lite,’ " says Henderson, referring to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) landmark treaty that is designed to protect intellectual property from theft on the Internet and gave birth to Canada’s belated Bill C-60. The WIPO treaties were signed by Canada in 1997, but have yet to be implemented here. Some commentators, viewing the proposed provisions of Bill C-60, question whether the draft will be effective and whether it will allow Canada to implement its international treaty obligations, says CRIA.
“Some legal experts who have reviewed the draft Canadian legislation have indicated that provisions intended to shield Internet service producers (ISPs) and Internet search engines from liability are so broadly drafted that they may unintentionally immunize file-swapping services such as Kazaa and Grokster from liability in Canada,” says the release.
"This is something that even the ISPs can’t want given their commitment to building legal music download and subscription services," added CRIA General Counsel Richard Pfohl.
However, those ISPs have also fought attempts by the recording industry to fork over data on customers CRIA says are high level pirates, saying they do not wish to violate their clients’ privacy.
Adds Pfohl: "As it is drafted, the Canadian bill would have the perverse effect of protecting traffickers in stolen intellectual property from liability at the same time that other countries around the world are enacting laws prohibiting such illegitimate trafficking schemes… This is directly contrary to the Canadian Government’s stated intentions, and we are confident that Ottawa will take steps to amend the legislation and correct these drafting errors when the bill is considered by Parliament this fall."
