News

Identifying the alleged song swappers at the centre of the music industry's legal battle with the Internet community may be near impossible, sources warn.

“It may be hard to track these people down,” warns Peter Bissonnette, president of Calgary's Shaw Communications Inc. “The last thing we want to do is to be giving out names and phone numbers of our customers that in fact haven't done what is being suggested they have done.”

On Monday, the Canadian Recording Industry Association asked the Federal Court of Canada to order five communications companies to hand over the identities of 29 so-called “uploaders,” Internet users who posted hundreds of songs illegally on the Web. The motion has been adjourned until March 12 for the parties involved to review the scope of CRIA's request, including the technical ability for the Internet service providers to meet the order.

MediaSentry Inc., a New York–based Internet watchdog, is the source of CRIA's evidence. The on-line data mining firm declined to discuss its methods, operations or history. “The fact is we are involved in a lot of litigation and we can't answer questions,” said Gary Millin, company president.

In five affidavits, Mr. Millin detailed how MediaSentry tied the alleged uploaders to Canada. Last fall, individuals using alias user names on the popular Kazaa file-sharing service were tied to a specific Internet protocol number, an address that provides an on-ramp to the Internet. Those numbered IP addresses were then linked to five ISPs: Shaw, Bell Canada, Rogers Communications Inc., Telus Corp. and Vidéotron Ltée.

The catch is, tying an IP address to an alleged uploader for the purpose of a lawsuit may prove difficult. Each ISP has thousands of IP addresses that float from customer to customer as on-line sessions begin and end. Each firm manages its network differently and there is no standard for record keeping of Internet traffic or e-mails.

Over the past week, Telus has, with little success, tried to track down three alleged uploaders identified by MediaSentry. Only two of the three customers were successfully contacted and only one of these accounts was active at the time of the alleged uploading, the company's legal counsel said.

“I have never downloaded a single song. I honestly wouldn't know how to do it,” said one Alberta Telus customer who asked not to be identified. The 35-year-old woman received a letter from the ISP last week advising her to seek legal counsel because the music industry was seeking her identity.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco public interest law firm, claims mistakes have been made in the U.S. music industry's battle to prosecute about 1,000 alleged song thieves.

“Most ISPs claim to have generally accurate records of who was using an IP address at a particular time. Now we have found in the U.S. that some people have been misidentified. It's not quite clear yet who has been making the mistakes,” said Seth Schoen, staff technologist at the EFF.