By Graeme Wearden, 15 March 2005 09:00
NEWS
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is likely to bring further legal action against UK citizens accused of sharing copyright-protected files over the internet.
Late last week the BPI won a court ruling that will force six UK ISPs to name 31 subscribers suspected of illegally sharing music.
Speaking on Monday, a BPI spokesman suggested that last Friday's legal success which followed a similar court action in October 2004 will prove to be just one part of a long-term process of changing people's behaviour online through legal action.
"In terms of behavioural change, the UK government has broadcast the dangers of drink-driving, but people still drink-drive," said the BPI spokesman.
The ISPs involved in the case now have 14 days to provide the names sought by the BPI. The individuals named will then be invited to settle the charges, probably by paying a fine of around £2,000.
The BPI hopes that the amount of publicity generated by last week's court success will deter internet users from uploading copyright material to file-swapping networks.
But despite the group's tough stance, the spokesman recognised that the BPI is still facing an uphill struggle to convince file-swappers that they are in the wrong.
"We're reluctant to say 'OK, the job's done, let's spend money on making records'," said the BPI spokesman. "I suspect that the problem won't go away just because we've launched two rounds of litigation".
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
This court ruling will force ISPs to breach terms and conditions of service, human rights to privacy, data protection etc, etc. will it not?
How are ISPs going to react when they face the unenviable task of selecting which of their customers to turn in?
How many rounds of litigation will BPI attempt to pursue?
Now don't get me wrong, as a Software Developer I won't advocate piracy, but I fail so see the justice in allowing ISPs to decide which of their loyal paying customers to serve up to the satiate the BPI.
Instead, wouldn't it be sensible to prosecute and rescind costs from ISPs themselves who by definition of the above actions, will admit they know the sources theft and fraud, but failed to act under their own commercial terms and conditions?
2. Alleged Cybersquatter
This should never of come to this. However the ISP's should have been forced to terminate the accounts of the clients responsible, as using their network in this manner was in breach of all ISP's acceptable use policy.
Giving up data in this manner to a non government corporation is indeed a breach of Civil, Human and Data Protection Rights.. If it was me I would have to file suit against the ISP and file an appeal to the courts so as not to allow my data protected information.
The ISP has a resposibility to inform each of the individuals involved, prior to the release of their information to any third party, it is then up to the individual to submit an appeal, during which time they could apply for an injunction against the ISP so as not to release the information especially if the the alleged uses is a minor.
3. Martin Dallaghan
We all know that the growth in demand for bandwidth has been directly linked to the demand for free music over file sharing networks!
At the end of the day the benefit of P2P to ISP's and even to the hardware manufacturers has been massive driving much of the continued home user IT expenditure in the last few years. Forgetting the rights and wrongs of the act of sharing it's self no ISP is going to shoot it's self in the foot by banning such activity!