A ruling in Canada declaring downloading music through peer-to-peer services legal, but uploading illegal, may do little to prevent the music industry from taking its own action against file swappers.
That's because the country's industry group, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), is in lockstep with its U.S. counterpart's plan to sue individual file swappers. And last week's ruling by Canadian regulators will not pose a formidable barrier for CRIA to begin its own round of litigation, according to a legal analyst. "I don't know that last week's decision has a huge impact on (the music industry's) potential litigation strategy," said Michael Geist, technology counsel for the law firm of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt in Ottawa.
The CRIA, Geist said, can just as easily find music uploaders as downloaders. Peer-to-peer services such as Kazaa allow a user to download songs from other PCs while simultaneously uploading songs off the user's hard drive for public availability. Speculation that the CRIA will follow the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in suing individual file sharers reached a boiling point on Tuesday. Canada's National Post, a nationally distributed newspaper, published a top story that said the CRIA was planning to take legal action against music uploaders.
News source: C|Net News.com
