VOL, I havn't seen your evidence of this thread, but I highly doubt that it has the impact you believe it has, and heres why:
File sharing has always been legal in every Western country. (This is the very basis of the internet). The real dispute has always been control over copyrighted works, and this is where it gets interesting.
I could believe that perhaps the courts would choose not to enforce certain copyright disputes via file sharing programs, this is just legal realism. What cannot and will not happen in any Western nation is the legalization of file sharing that violates copyright laws; in effect eliminating Canadas copyright protection for intelectual property, the intelectual equivalent to armageddon.
Now, I'm going to speculate where you went wrong with your assumption. There are a few methods.
1) You mentioned that a Canadian judge made this ruling, so the decision is not equivalent to a decision made by the RIAA (a private organization). I am not up on Canadian law, so perhaps file swapping of certain forms was illegal up to this point? In such case, I guarentee that the judge ruled upon the legality of using these systems to swap open-source, or non-copyrighted files. If this is the case, then Canada is on the same level as the US now, ability to legally use file sharing programs; providing their use is not for infringing on copyrights.
2) Perhaps your mistake was that it wasn't a judge, but rather the Canadian equivalent to the RIAA. If this is the case, then copyright laws don't go out the window either, rather the legality of the actions remains the same (unless a large number artists decided to make their works available to the public domain, the equivalant of throwing their music away). No matter the decision of this group, an independant artist still has the right to their material, and any illegal sharing of these files can be pursued in court.
3) Perhaps your mistake is that you don't realize that file sharing is completely legal, and only copyright violations are illegal. I think this is probobly where you went wrong, since you stated that the RIAA should legalize file-sharing. (The RIAA has no real legal power, only that of lobbying, don't get me wrong lobbying can be very powerful, but the RIAA can't just legalize something that was once illegal). What you mean is that the RIAA could choose to stop suiing people over the illegal sharing of certain works. If this is done, any artist still retains their rights to their material, and can still sue over breach of their copyright, they just may be in violation of any agreement they have with the RIAA. But they still have the right to their work.
OK, I've been rambling on for quite a while now, so I'm going to stop.
VOL - You are still my bitch
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