Earlier this week, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered its decision on an important and significant Internet music case, known in legal circles as the Tariff 22 case but known among those who are not lawyers as the SOCAN case. I put together a story for CTV's National News on this. Blair Packham, who you might remember from The Jitters, was in the piece. Like a lot of musicians, Blair was frustrated because, in his view, there seems to be a disconnect between Canada's copyright laws and common sense.

Blair Packham, formerly of The Jitters, in his studio in downtown Toronto. Blair is also a leader of the Songwriters Association of Canada.

Blair is also a member of the executive of The Songwriters Association of Canada, a group that was sympathetic to SOCAN's legal fight. SOCAN is the Society of Canadian Authors and Composers. It represents music authors and publishers in Canada and collects royalties on their behalf and then distributes the proceeds. Back in 1995, SOCAN thought it would be a good idea if Internet service providers paid an annual royalty to SOCAN. SOCAN thought ISPs ought to be treated like radio stations. Radio stations pay an annual license fee (in 2002, Canada's radio stations paid $32-million to SOCAN) in order to play all those hits. Canada's ISPs, not surprisingly, resisted the idea of being asked to collect royalties from their customers to pay someone else. So the case went to the courts and finally ended up at the Supreme Court of Canada. The ruling earlier this week, though, goes beyond the basic issue of royalties. The University of Ottawa's Michael Geist believes that the judgement is significant because Justice Binnie (who wrote the unanimous decision) stressed that individual privacy rights should not be trampled simply because someone thinks a copyright violation has occurred. For ISPs, the ruling is a big deal because it suggests that courts will treat ISPs like the telephone company, that is, as a conduit for information and not as entity liable for the information travelling through that conduit. That kind of thinking has important implications for ISPs and their customers when it comes to a range of other issues including pornography and slander. For triva buffs, the ruling is important because it's believe to be the first time the word 'cyberspace' has appeared in a Supreme Court of Canada judgement (or so says University of Western Ontario professor Mark Perry).