File-sharing not illegal, says judge

A Canadian judge has dealt a blow to the global record industry's anti-piracy campaign by declaring that sharing music over the internet is not illegal.

Justice Konrad von Finckenstein has refused the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) a court order to force five Canadian internet service providers to reveal the names, phone numbers and addresses of 29 file-sharers the CRIA believed were infringing copyright.

In his ruling, von Finckenstein compared the actions the file sharers to the presence of a photocopy machine in a library. "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 service," he stated.

People who download music illegally outside Canada can’t quite break out the champagne yet, as this decision is based in current Canadian copyright law. "Copyright laws do differ all around the world, and I understand the CRIA want to appeal the decision. There’s overwhelming evidence that file sharing is hugely damaging to the global music industry and it's a clear infringement of copyright," said Matt Phillips at the BPI.

Earlier this week, Scottish indie-favourites Franz Ferdinand gave their support to file sharing. "Downloading is a great way to find out about music. I'm not going to criticise somebody for loving music. People come up to me and say, 'I downloaded your album, and I can't wait to go out and buy it'," lead singer Alex Kapranos told Rolling Stone.