Monday, October 11, 2010

Irish ISP wins major legal victory against record labels

Interesting news from TechEYE.net:

Irish ISP wins major legal victory against record labels
No legal precedent in Irish law for disconnection

UPC, one of Ireland's largest internet service providers, has won a major legal victory against four of the world's most powerful record companies over the much-contested issue of online music piracy.

The High Court in Dublin ruled today that there was no precedent in Irish law to force ISPs to identify and disconnect people accused of illegally downloading copyrighted files, which means that despite the record companies requests, UPC will not be required to take part in the three strikes programme that had been on the table for some time now.

Warner Music, Universal Music, Sony BMG and EMI Records wanted a three strikes system that would including an informal warning at the first stage, designed to highlight the problem, a stern written warning at the second stage, threatening disconnection, and then a disconnection for seven days at the third stage. If a user continues to break the rules disconnection for a full year may follow.

Complete article


Keywords: lawyer digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property portable music player Bookmark and Share

3 comments:

mathinker said...

If the post I just read on Slashdot is correct, the court only ruled that way because the Irish legislature hasn't yet passed the law which implements Ireland's compliance with the corresponding EU law.

It's only a matter of time before that happens.

I see big opportunities developing for VPN providers from the Eastern European countries which are starting to catch up with the level of their Internet infrastructure, like Moldova.

Zepherin said...

I would rather get a warning than a subpoena, but this is just another attempt by the RIAA to get somebody else to cover their costs. They are losing a great deal of money with their strategy of litigation so they are trying to dump their costs onto ISPs.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the posts, very interesting