Re: Downloading legal in Canada? You must mean the other Canada, because it's not legal in this one.
while it isn't "legal" for someone to download copyrighted material in Canada, the supreme court took a *very* interesting stand on the issue when it was presented to the court.
Rights Holders are allowed to send your ISP a notification. The ISP is as of yet under no obligation to hand over the identity of the account holder to the rights holder. The ISP is responsible for sending the alleged violator a notification. But aren't required to enforce or follow up on said notification.
A) privacy.
B) IP != ID
C) rights holders using 3rd party legal entities to pursue vague violations.
D) honey traps
All of these perspectives were considered by the court. The result is that - effectively - rights holders really aren't likely to get much traction on 'downloader' violations up here. The courts were especially critical due to the fact that we have not one, but three rights holders bonus taxes on various media up here. Until the rights holder communities decide that they are willing to *loose* the income from those taxes they will very likely *not* challenge the limitations of the current law.
To be honest, considering the folks I know, they don't seem to be too bothered about pursuing the hosters either.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
