[Slowhand] NECC - Uploaders in Europe Being Persecuted

[ToeKneeF]

No EC Content -- Warning to ALL fellow Slowhanders (the article comes 
from InfoWorld)..................T

Music industry sues 2,000 uploaders in Europe
IFPI is using court injunctions to have file sharers' Internet access 
cut off


By Peter Sayer, IDG News Service
April 04, 2006

The music industry unleashed a new wave of copyright lawsuits on 
European Internet users on Tuesday, bringing the total sued since 
November to around 2,000, the International Federation of the 
Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

The lawsuits seek to impose fines on Internet users who have uploaded 
music files and made them available for others to download without the 
copyright holders' permission.

In addition to fines, the IFPI has begun testing a new legal weapon: 
using court injunctions to have file sharers' Internet access cut off. 
Already, 130 such injunctions have been requested in France, leading to 
over 100 Internet users being disconnected by their ISPs (Internet 
service providers). A Danish court ruled in February that the same 
sanction can be applied there, said the IFPI, which is a trade 
association for the recording industry.

The IFPI uses an automated search tool to pinpoint the IP (Internet 
Protocol) addresses of those uploading files, and then asks the relevant 
ISP to identify the subscriber.

"It's all anonymous until the ISP gives us the personal information," 
said Alex Jacob, a spokesman for IFPI, adding that there is no 
demographic profiling of the targets for the lawsuits.

"It's simply the volume of files that these people put out," he said. 
"They have been making large numbers of files available, hundreds or 
thousands. These are persistent long-term file sharers."

The suits were filed in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, 
Italy, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. Some were also filed in Hong 
Kong, the only territory outside Europe taking part in the current wave 
of actions, Jacob said.

There will be another wave of cases at the end of August or in early 
September, Jacob warned.

Since IFPI members turned to the courts to stop the uploading of 
unauthorized music files, they have sued a total of 5,500 Internet users 
in 18 countries. The IFPI, which claims to have won hundreds of those 
cases with settlements averaging €2,633 ($3,180).

Not all those cases end up in court. British Phonographic Industry 
(BPI), a U.K. trade association, has filed 138 lawsuits, of which 102 
were settled out of court. BPI has won four cases in court, and 32 are 
still undecided, it said Tuesday.


-- 
"The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can
be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues!"
...................Elizabeth Taylor