4/01/2004 05:12:00 AM

Swapping music files allowed, federal judge rules

The music industry's fight against illegal file sharing suffered a major setback yesterday when a Federal Court judge ruled that swapping songs on the Internet for personal use does not break the law.

"Downloading a song for personal use does not amount to infringement," Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein of the Federal Court of Canada wrote in his decision. "I cannot see a real difference between a library that places a photocopy machine in a room full of copyrighted material and a computer user that places a personal copy on a shared directory."