AfterDawn: News

P2P war expands to Canada

RIAA's Canadian counterpart, Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), has started an American-style legal war against alleged P2P file swappers.

CRIA has sent letters to five Canadian ISPs -- Shaw Communications, Sympatico, Videotron, Rogers Cable and Telus Corp -- demanding the names and other personal details of 29 Canadian customers that it claims have distributed illegal copies of music online via P2P networks. Only one of the ISPs, Shaw Communications, has decided to challenge the demands in court.



"Our customers' right to privacy is very dear to us," said Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette.

Shaw's opinion is in clear contrast to the opinion of Videotron, that's owned by a company called Quebecor that also sells music. Videotron stated that they consider file sharing to be "theft" and stated that they will comply with all the court orders and will co-operate eagerly with copyright owners to resolve all issues regarding to P2P use in their network.

Shaw Communications' case will go to court next Monday in Toronto.

Source: CTV

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 13 Feb 2004 15:44

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• 22 comments

• Vular

  That's weird, I thought it was legal to download music in Canada......
  It's just uploading that I thought was illegal. Am I right or am I wrong?

  14.2.2004 12:04 #1

• Edpaulw

  Downloading yes, but uploading (the suppliers of the music you are downloading), NO.
  
  So if there are NO UPLOADERS (suppliers) in Canada there will be no downloads of files from Canadian computers.
  
  I thought the recording industry was accounting for this "theft" by levies on CDRs. It seems that's not the case.

  14.2.2004 12:43 #2

• Vular

  So you think that the same thing here will happen here what aslo happened in the US? That is will the courts make it so that isp's don't have to give the CRIA any information if the don't want to? I can't wait to see what's gonna happens....I hope the result is better and not worse then what the US has gotten........

  14.2.2004 12:52 #3

• vudoo

  The RIAA lost the battle over the fact that the ISP's don't have to give up their customers in the US and now the RIAA is trying to rule over the world with their morals. If the world does not see file sharing as wrong then it is not wrong and they may as well get over it and figure how to make an Ad-Supportive p2p network like Kazaa or join forces with Kazaa and have all those ads support the artists. They could even collect the data as we download so that only the popular artists get paid the most money out of the RIAA's funds. It is a profitable solution all around and it makes sense. But the RIAA wants to try and play God or Daddy to all of us educated folks and reprogram our brains to believe they are right and we are wrong.
  
  Voodoohippie

  14.2.2004 19:22 #4

• Prisoner

  I hope Shaw wins, or atleast spins the copywrite definitions. It would be nice to get rid of the copy write tax we have to pay. I always did hate the feeling that they think we are all criminals. But if it goes to court, they will know were not.

  15.2.2004 15:11 #5

• DaOsT

  I agree the RIAA are just aload of dickheads with their heads up there arses
  We all have the right to think freely they are just trying to bully the world to there mentality
  
  sorry it AINT gonna work I wouldn't give a bucket of piss for those morons
  oohh thats all I gotta say about that
  

  ..::WhO GiveS A ShiT::SO FuckiN WhaT!!::....::LivE ForeveR OR DiE TryiN!!::..
  ChecK OuT ThE PenguiN GamE AnD PosT YouR HighesT DistancE ON ThE ForuM
  http://www.gazholland.com/

  16.2.2004 05:46 #6

• Prisoner

  Depending on how this goes, I think someone should ask the Music company for a cheque. How can they say they are losing millions, when we pay them millions ever time we buy blank media. Sure they can ask for names. But I think we should stop paying copywrite tax and then see how they feel.

  16.2.2004 10:23 #7

• Prisoner

  The more I think about this, the more it ticks me off!
  We pay a large levey which they get money from, and this is regardless if you burn your data, files or music. Hard drives are included in this! Related Canadian Government site:
  http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/news/c20032004fs-e.html
  A website that explaines it clearly:
  http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml
  
  I think we should remove the levey and let the record companies find the law breakers and try and tie up the courts for years. That is exactly what we need.

  16.2.2004 13:32 #8

• vudoo

  I’m surprised that there have not been huge pickets out side record stores and riot type of behavior all over the world just like the Boston tea party. After all double taxation is not something most people withstand. However we the people can make a difference. We need to let our legislatures understand that accepting bribes from big businesspeople will lead to severe consequences in the future. One example I can give was in the eighties and early 90’s when you had to pay per minute for long distance. Young kids began phone phreaking to get their warez passed from one BBS to another. The phone companies tried to implement traps like ANI(Automatic Number Identification) and other trap codes. But the kids used VMB’s (Voice mail boxes) from companies that had 800 numbers to give out the latest codes to those that wanted to get their warez from one source to another. AT&T Alliance teleconferences were formed to discuss ways to break the templates for other long distance carriers and diverters were used to stop tracers. Every day they threatened the kids with jail time and the like while the kids used diverters and PBX’s to divert the tracing technology. This is where proxies and random proxies will defeat the RIAA. They will make threats and the tech savvy people will divert the tracing technology. Then after that everyone will use it and the business of forcing people to buy music will fall to the ground. Why do you think cell phone companies and many landline companies are suddenly offering free long distance to its customers? Because people who were tech savvy learned to clone cell phones and place the calls to their girl friends and associates free of charge. They spent millions of dollars trying to put say less then one million phone phreakers in jail and guess what they could not do it. Many people on the Seattle raven (Which is a free party line at 206-219-9401) use to set up illegal 800 numbers to that line to talk for FREE. And since thousands of people called and used the CB feature so that they did not have to go into the main room their friends were not called. Many used pay phones to call the illegal 800 number. The moral of this little story is if the phone company could not stop a few children from calling party lines for free and stop them from calling BBS’s all over the world and stop them from hacking voice mail systems to spread the codes then what makes the RIAA think they can stop over 60 million people with the desire to share files? I guarantee you there is going to be chaos on the net in a few months while the few rise up and face the enemy. The challenge has came and now the tech savvy people of the world are called into battle.
  
  Voodoohippie

  16.2.2004 15:46 #9

• DaOsT

  voodoo your entirely right if they call it down p2p users will rise as one
  then we will see how high and mighty the RIAA are
  

  ..::WhO GiveS A ShiT::SO FuckiN WhaT!!::....::LivE ForeveR OR DiE TryiN!!::..
  ChecK OuT ThE PenguiN GamE AnD PosT YouR HighesT DistancE ON ThE ForuM
  http://www.gazholland.com/

  16.2.2004 22:40 #10

• Photogirl

  Doesn't giving out customers information break the privacy policies?

  17.2.2004 11:03 #11

• Edpaulw

  As far as I'm concerned, ISPs should NEVER be required to give out ANY information to third parties.
  
  And thankfully KaZaA is suing the RIAA because the RIAA is using software to "hack into YOUR computer".
  
  If individuals did to corporations what the RIAA is doing to individuals there would be HEADLINES every day.
  
  I am very disappointed that Sympatico (Bell) is cooperating with the CRIA.

  17.2.2004 11:24 #12

• Vular

  Bell is cooperating with the CRIA? I say the reason for this is because the same group of people who like to share music also pirate satelite signals (me). LOL, I guess they're just looking for other ways of revenge, stupid ass SOB's..........

  17.2.2004 13:24 #13

• vudoo

  While we are on the subject of satellite PIRACY I can say that Dish Network has a reasonable deal. I got the America's top 100, HBO, CINEMAX, SHOWTIME all for $56 for the next 20 months. then its $65. Now with all that entertainment I no longer hack DirecTV and worry about my smart cards burning out every week to every month. But again we've bitch slapped the satellite companies into submission. Dish Net knows that if they get unreasonable people with the skills will hack their system. Why I even get a FREE ppv movie or tow legally. Why can't the music industry wake up and pay attention.
  
  Voodoohippie

  17.2.2004 14:22 #14

• Prisoner

  I wouldn't condone piracy or hacking signals. But Bell should watch out with the average tech nerd. As Vudoo said Kids got around phone companies in the past, and that was with hard lines. Now as with satelite Tv a lot of phones use satalies or transmission towers (Cell phones every where). If you know what your doing you can access that free in the air signal and do with it as you please. Just my two cents.

  17.2.2004 19:41 #15

• Maryela3

  Cant they understand?
  Theyre now at Canada then in MExico and they will also start doing that shit in asian countries.
  Cant they uderstand?
  Why we the people download music, preak cellphones, and crack web pages and got free Dish ?
  Beacuse a lot of poeple cant simply pay for their services
  check this out
  the cellphone may vary about 90 dollars
  what if we download 150 songs alla of em at 99cents wow now thats becomin a lot and dish sis about a 47 dollars everything including taxes Water, electricity still payin the house
  crap everything will be about a lot
  We the so called theifts just in some cases have the enought money to pay all that crap so give us a break as i said later Why dont spend those millions of dollars in comunity programs helping people that really need that money instead of helping artists instead of helping almost inmortal companies that are all over the world just because they lose some dollars they are still swimming in their money its not fair its just not fair!! biut what can we do >?
  by the way is it triue that when you have more than 500 files in kazaa they will start to look for you?
  thanks
  Marie
  Marie
  
  

  In other words

  18.2.2004 04:23 #16

• Prisoner

  My understanding of the current cases, the names that they want are people that have 1000 or more files available for uploading in the P2P programs. So what it looks like they did was registered in Kazaa or what ever and did file searches to see what users had, then did individual user searches to see how many files each user had available for up loading. They compiled a list and want the names of the top 29 or 30 what ever. They got the IP address through Kazaa of these people but no names and address yet. They say they wanted to go through legal chanels to get names and address, but if you have the IP of the person, just ask drchips, you can get the name and address.
  
  So I think they have it, they just want to charge them, and a court doesn`t like illegally obtained evidence, so that is why we are hearing about it. What they want is for people to stop allowing others to upload files, thus removing the file share comunity.
  

  I am not a number
  I am a Free Man

  18.2.2004 06:33 #17

• Nephilim

  Keep in mind riaa started off swearing up and down they were only going after those with 1,000 files but that got lowered to 500 and less once they started suing.
  
  For those in other countries who want to know EXACTLY what's going to happen in their country in the near future, simply watch what riaa does here. They're closely tied with their equivalents abroad and will force the issue in as many countries as they can. Four and five months ago I read many posts (boycott-riaa.com) from those in Canada who were secure in the thought that file-sharing was protected there and they'd never be sued because of the media tax to compensate for file sharing. now look what's happening. The entertainment industry will never be satisfied. Hell, CRIA is pushing for higher media taxes AND suing at the same time. Look at Australia now.
  
  For anyone who cares about the subjest this is a must-hear. It's long but so worth it.
  
  http://www.eff.org/IP/freeculture/free.html

  Gigabyte 8INXP, Intel P4HT 3.06
  Mushkin 1024 MB PC2100
  Sapphire 9800 Pro
  Plextor PX-708A/Plextor Premium/LTD-166S
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  Bald is Beautiful

  18.2.2004 08:33 #18

• vudoo

  Oh people of the earth time to stop listening to the mad men of the RIAA and MPAA because soon they will take the freedoms of the world. In the beginning there was Regulated use, Fair use and Copyright law. Now we have regulated use and Copyright law. After p2p is taken down and the computers are locked to stop copying you will have one thing and that is copyright. You can spend time trying to circomvent the law or you can do something. Give to the EFF because they've made a difference. They are trying to get the broadcast flag law overturned. Stop whining and be a part of the secret society that does research and can build a better tomorrow for you and your children of the future. If you could give $30/Month to the EFF and more people follow suit we can overturn the laws that these terrorists make.
  
  Voodoohippie

  18.2.2004 18:20 #19

• chrome38

  this is stupid. We pay levies on cd's so this doesnt happen. Greedy basterds. 10 cents a cd so $5 on a 50 pack of cds. Alot of ppl buy cds so this is ALOT of cash they are making JUST on people buying blank cds

  24.4.2005 12:22 #20

• dude845

  i think it was Prisoner who was talking about the copyright tax , what is that i have shaw internet and i am a kid using bearshare lite?

  30.4.2005 13:01 #21

• tjk123

  hey the code for bell express vu wont hold for more then 15 minutes.... I need to know y and how to fix it. New code please could someone help?

  21.8.2007 13:59 #22