Canadian music companies want to sue

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Feb 23, 2004 | by Associated Press

TORONTO -- A federal court in Canada is considering whether the recording industry can sue people who share music collections online.

Court proceedings in the case, brought by the Canadian Recording Industry Association, began last week and are due to continue March 12.

The music companies want to smoke out music pirates from the protection of Internet service providers, mirroring action taken last year by the recording industry in the United States. The Canadian branches of BMG, EMI, Warner, Virgin and Universal have sued 29 people, identified only as John and Jane Does, and accused them of being high-volume music traders.

Justice Konrad von Finckenstein asked the five largest Canadian ISPs to submit more details about the technical requirements and privacy-law implications of identifying the defendants. Joel Watson, a lawyer for Telus Corp., one of the big ISPs, said identifying Internet users by their handles isn't simple. Watson said one of the three names Telus has been asked to fork over didn't even have an account with the company during the alleged infringement.

"It shows the frailty of the system," Watson said outside court.

Like recording industries around the world, Canada's has been battling a four-year slump in CD sales that it blames on the explosion of file sharing. The Canadian industry claims it has lost more than $320 million in retail sales since 1999.