FEDERAL COURT DENIES CRIA MOTION!!! -- Read the decision .

Congratulations to Shaw, Telus, Rogers, Sympatico, EFC and CIPPIC for their accomplishment in this case! And thanks to everybody who has been participating in the discussions on CanFLI -- your contributions went into the winning arguments.

Lawsuits against file sharers are set to extend beyond North America, with the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) weighing in with lawsuits in Denmark, Germany and Italy. According to today's reports, the IFPI is also involved in the Canadian actions.



Full articles:
· Music trade to sue European file-sharers
· European music pirates face new wave of lawsuits
· Wall Street Journal ($ubscription service)

A new study concludes that file sharing has very little impact on music sales.

Instead of comparing the purchasing patterns of certain age groups from year to year as the recording industry has in past studies, this group compared the rates at which songs were downloaded to the rates at which the albums with those same songs were purchased, according to the Reuters article. The complete study is available . The authors are Koleman Strumpf of Chapel Hill and and Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard Business School.

CanFLI volunteers attended the motion for disclosure in BMG et al. v. John Doe et al. and took extensive notes on the proceedings. Those notes are now available here , so you can read the play-by-play of the courtroom events!

Special thanks to Lisa Cavion for attending on both days and helping to take such thorough notes.

Needless to say, this description of the proceedings is not authoritative and is provided for informational purposes only. It was written on-the-fly over the course of 10 hours of courtroom proceedings by volunteers.

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March 1, 2004
Ottawa, Ontario

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic ( CIPPIC ) and Electronic Frontier Canada (EFC) were today granted leave to intervene in the lawsuits brought by the Canadian recording industry against alleged online music file-sharers.

On February 13, the news broke that the music industry had filed its actions against Canadian music traders! Read the articles in The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star .

CRIA filed a statement of claim and other supporting documents . They also brought a motion for an order for disclosure of the identities of 29 users of peer-to-peer software. On Monday, February 16, the ISPs and CRIA appeared in Federal Court in Toronto on the motion. The ISPs asked for and won an adjournment until March 12. This gives the ISPs time to develop their case, as well as time to notify their clients and allow them to retain counsel.

The music industry has asked the court by way of Notice of Motion to order ISPs to turn over the names, home and business addresses, telephone and fax numbers and email addresses that they may have and which are associated with the IP address that the plaintiffs have provided.

On February 10, 2004, the music industry filed lawsuits against Canadian users of peer to peer software.