Bordering on Sanity

With jealous eyes I look to our Northern neighbor, Canada, where my hero of the moment, Judge Konrad von Finckenstein, slapped down the Canadian version of the RIAA for attempting to port the RIAA's "sue 'em all" strategy to the Provinces. Judge Finckenstein writes:

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. Before it constitutes distribution, there must be a positive act by the owner of the shared directory, such as sending out the copies or advertising that they are available for copying.

This is the latest in a series of decisions in which Canadian court have said, in effect, "we're not going to worry about private, non-commercial, home-use copies." One would hope the Canadian record companies will take this to heart, and get back to the more productive task of finding ways to sell Rush CDs.