At the Federal Court of Canada, Canada's record industry failed miserably to convince a judge of its view of the world when it comes to sharing music files over the Internet. Privately, many lawyers who witnessed the proceedings said they were not surprised to see the judge hand the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) such a crushing legal defeat given the odd and under-prepared case CRIA presented to the court.
CRIA has appealed the Federal Court's decision to the Federal Court of Appeal.
Perhaps in an attempt to avoid a second legal rout on appeal, Canada's software publishers and movie and film distributors asked the Federal Court of Appeal if it could join in the proceedings and present its own arguments which, presumably, would support CRIA's case.
The Honourable Justice John Evans, however, said no, saying "the appelants [CRIA], respondents and intervener are well placed to argue [the merits of copyright law] and the proposed interveners are unlikely to bring a different perspective on them that will assist the Court."
Obviously, Mr. Justice Evans didn't see CRIA in action in front of the Federal Court, where Justice Konrad von Finckenstein had to remind CRIA's lawyers that they could not stand in front of him and tell him what was going on; they were supposed to call witnesses and experts to explain the world to the court.