TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Severe Crack Down on Piracy by Music Industry

Severe Crack Down on Piracy by Music Industry

Patrick Lannin (reuters@telecom-digest.org)
Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:33:50 -0600

By Patrick Lannin

The music industry's top lobby group said on Tuesday it was launching
new legal action against the sharing of files over the Internet, which
it blames for hitting sales.

The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has
announced it is launching 2,100 new lawsuits and extending the action
to five new countries in Europe, Asia and, for the first time, South
America.

It said file-sharers in Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Hong Kong and
Singapore and United States will be prosecuted 'for good this time'.

"It's the thinking of dinosaurs for anyone to believe that they can
steal music after all the education and campaigns that we have had,"
IFPI head John Kennedy told Reuters.

The group said it was taking further action against people who put
music out on the Internet, uploading, via peer-to-peer software, which
allows others to download the files.

The group said actions, which are either civil complaints or criminal
prosecutions, launched on Tuesday or brought recently took the total
number of legal cases against uploaders to more than 3,800 in 16
nations outside the United States.

The legal action is part of a carrot-and-stick approach in the
industry, which is promoting digital music services such as iTunes and
Napster while prosecuting illegal file sharers.

Sales of digital music tripled in the first half of 2005, representing
6 percent of the market, or about $790 million.

IFPI said actions so far had led to mostly young men between the ages
of 20 and 30 paying fines of $3,000 or more. IFPI said "expect larger
fines and more guys getting sued in the next few months."

The cases being launched in Sweden, Argentina, Switzerland, Hong Kong
and Singapore joined Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany,
Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Britain and the
United States, it said.

IFPI said that in Argentina four out of 10 Internet users had
unauthorised p2p services. In Singapore, the recording industry has
filed 33 criminal complaints involving users of networks FastTrack and
Gnutella, it said.

In Hong Kong, civil actions are being brought against 22 uploaders. In
November, a man who uploaded three films on to the BitTorrent network
was sentenced to three months jail, it said, adding that "many in the
United States will wind up in jail also."

In Sweden, it said the music industry was announcing 15 criminal
complaints against music uploaders with more waves to follow. It said
research showed that more than 1 million people in the Nordic country
are file-sharing illegally.

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.

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