From Forbes.com:
The Federal Court of Canada rejected a request from the country's biggest music producers that it order Internet service providers to identify music swappers.
It was a setback for the music companies, which had targeted 29 large-volume song swappers in a test case to try to stem the downloading of music, which deprives them of revenue.
Federal Court Judge Konrad von Finckenstein, formerly Canada's competition commissioner, ruled that the music companies had failed to make a clear case of infringement and a case that public interest outweighed privacy concerns...
He noted that Canada's Copyright Act allows downloading of songs for personal use. And he pointed to a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision on photocopying, which established that setting up facilities that allow copying does not amount to authorizing infringement.
"I cannot see a real difference between a library that places a photocopy machine in a room full of copyrighted material and a computer user that places a personal copy on a shared directory linked to a P2P (peer-to-peer) service," he wrote.
"The mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution."
So what does this mean for Americans? Unfortunately, very little.
The American judicial system has already made up its mind about P2P swapping. They are saying that it is distribution and it is infringing on the copyrights held by music producers. Honestly, I'm inclined to believe them.
For me to believe the assertion made by the Canadian court I'd have to believe that file swappers aren't intending for their music files to be swapped. That's just too much of a stretch for me. Of course music swappers are intending their music files to be downloaded by other users. That's how the whole system works.
I agree with the Canadian court's concerns over the privacy of ISP customers, but to say that music swappers aren't distributing music is just plaine naive. I hate to be a wet blanket on this issue, but the truth is the truth.