TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's biggest music producers asked the courts on Monday to order Internet service providers to identify customers who swap songs illegally on the Internet as the Canadian firms try to match a U.S. crackdown on music piracy.

The music companies, including the Canadian units of giants Universal Music and EMI Music, asked the Federal Court of Canada to order the providers to disclose the identity of 29 large-volume song swappers as they try to stem the illegal downloading of music.

"It's long established in Canadian law this process of releasing information, and we don't expect there to be any surprises," said Richard Pfohl, general counsel for the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

The hearing, already contested by one Internet provider as an infringement of customer privacy, was adjourned to March 12 at the request of providers BCE Inc. (Toronto:BCE.TO - news), Telus Corp. (Toronto:T.TO - news), Videotron Groupe Ltee. (Toronto:VDO.TO - news) and Rogers Communications Inc. (Toronto:RCIb.TO - news).

Canada's music industry is the sixth largest in the world by sales, although at $621 million, its 2002 sales accounted for just 1.9 percent of the world total.

The industry has been encouraged by signs that U.S. court action against pirates is slowing illegal downloading. The London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry says the number of copyrighted music files hosted on networks has fallen about 20 percent in the past year, due in part to "industry anti-piracy actions."

Shaw Communications Inc. (Toronto:SJRb.TO - news), Canada's No. 2 cable company, said it will fight the music industry's request, preparing the ground for what could be a long legal battle.

"We intend to ask the court to preserve the privacy of our customers...(and) we believe this application amounts to a civil search warrant," chief executive Jim Shaw said.

FOLLOWING THE U.S. LEAD

The U.S. music industry has sued more than 400 alleged music swappers since September, including a 12-year-old girl and a grandfather.

And it is threatening to sue more as Web sites that offer free file-sharing abilities move their operations out of the reach of the U.S. legal system.

The Internet became an option as a tool for downloading free music when Napster (news - web sites) was created in 1999 and files could be shared through various computers.

As Napster downloads went up, CD sales went down, prompting a lawsuit from the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites).

By the summer of 2000 Napster was ordered to stop distributing copyrighted recordings, a motion that was held up in U.S. district court.
Napster has since returned as a pay-site, which competes with, among other sites, Apple computer's online iTunes Music store. Canada's own online music store, PureTracks, was launched last year.

Hey they forgot about Kazaa. It's true though, but seriously why would you want to spend almost 20 bucks buying a cd that has only a few good songs? I mean let's rule out the Internet on this one. There's always other ways. People who sell illegal copies of cd albums for 5 bucks especially at nightmarkets. If you've been to even one, you can say aye for this one, right? :rolleyes: Maybe if they made better albums and lowered their prices. Some albums would be worth the money!

Hehe yea you're right. Things like this are possible to prevent. I can dub 100 cds and give them all away, how would anyone know. People will burn each other cds, send each other files, sell in black markets and unoffical channels.
People even give them out through irc. They can get rid of some of the bigger pirates out there but there will always be a way from the common joe to get his mp3.
and they are going to sue a 12 year old girl? Isn't that like bullying someone for their lunch money? Anyways stupid cases like that don't go anywhere, just turn out to be threats that nobody takes too seriously :/

Yep, if they're going to sue anyone it's the people who run it. I'll take a good long awhile. Oh! I know, maybe they should shut down the Internet because it's distrubuting illegal material. Like that's ever going to happen. When Napster went down, what did people start using? Kazaa. There's also Morpheous and WinMX that I know of, both of which have a decent amount of users. Let's weigh out the money you have to spend and the material you're going to get.

via Internet: You can download your choice of music for FREE.
via Purchase (from stores): up to $20 (CAD) for a single CD with about 14 tracks
via Purchase (blackmarket): You pay $5 (CAD) for the same CD with the same songs. You can buy an additional 3 CDs for the price of the legal copy of the album.

Frankly, this goes the same for movies. They raised the ticket prices here, and not many people can afford to go see a movie every weekend now. You can get the free movies off of Kazaa that are playing in theatres. If it's a good movie, sweet.. you go buy the DVD when it comes out. If it's a crappy movie, all that's wasted is your time and not your money.

There are so many ways for people to get a hold of movies, software, games, and music without paying a dime. Why pay $50 for an old PS game when your friend can just copy it for you. Same with music and everything else. It's a foolish idea to think that they think they can do anything to prevent it. They can continue to target big overseas chains that focus on selling pirated software by the crateful. At least that cuts of big, illegal channels thats stretch out worldwide. Filing a lawsuit against a little girl isn't going to cut down piracy or come anywhere close to making people think twice. There are a few universities where they are investigating college students and the use of illegal downloads through kazaa. They are filing lawsuits and suing everyone they find to be downloading pirated music. What is there response? "If they want to sue us they are more then welcome to the $5 life savings I have" It isn't reducing anything and most people don't consider it a real threat. They can attack the bigger underground markets, but aside from that they won't be able to do much..nor have they in the past half decade they've tried.

Um, Should I mention China "The Bootleg Capital of the World".

lol yea, the feds try their best to hit China and Russia's pirates. When they do their round of crackdowns they usually hit it off big, confiscating thousands of pirated software. The thing is...no matter how much pirated material they seem to confiscate and how many people they arrest, there are always more to take their place.
In the end its best that they do crackdown on the major bootleggers around, but their attempts to stop the everyday joe from downloading his favorite mp3 is pointless and not worth the effort.

O you thinks that is bad? Try my Media Tech Class. It's like bootleg central. We always ripping shit from movies, music, graphics. Anything you name, we bootlegged it..... :riding:

Hah, well can't say the companies didn't ask for it. There's always ways around things and you can get away with it easily. :lmao: Nobody believes in the copyright sign anymore... :eek: