Irish ISP Taken to Court Over Illegal Music Downloads

From Mary Carolan, The Irish Times:

Four major record companies have brought a High Court action aimed at compelling Eircom to take measures to prevent its networks being used for the illegal downloading of music.

The case is the first in Ireland aimed at internet service providers, rather than individual illegal downloaders.

Eircom is the largest broadband internet service provider in the State.

Latest figures available, for 2006, indicate that 20 billion music files were illegally downloaded worldwide that year. The music industry estimates that for every single legal downloaded, there are 20 illegal ones.

The record companies are also challenging Eircom's refusal to use filtering technology or other measures to voluntary block, or filter, material from its network that is being used to download music in violation of the companies' copyright and/or licensing rights.

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Pirate Bay Founders Busted, May See Jail Time

From Reuters:

Four men linked to the popular file-sharing site Pirate Bay were charged by a Swedish prosecutor on Thursday with conspiracy to break copyright law and being an accessory.

The site was created in 2003 by a Swedish anti-copyright group but was soon taken over by individuals. It helps surfers swap mostly copyright-protected music, movie and game files.

Pirate Bay co-founders Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, spokesman Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom, who is reported to have helped fund one of the world's most visited Web sites, could face up to two years in jail if convicted.

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Washington Post Corrects Marc Fisher's RIAA Hit Piece

From Washington Post:

A Dec. 30 Style & Arts column incorrectly said that the recording industry "maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer." In a copyright-infringement lawsuit, the industry's lawyer argued that the actions of an Arizona man, the defendant, were illegal because the songs were located in a "shared folder" on his computer for distribution on a peer-to-peer network.

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Beijing Court Sides With Baidu in Music Piracy Case

From AFP:

BEIJING (AFP) — A Beijing appeals court has found top Chinese search engine Baidu.com not guilty of property rights infringement for posting links to websites offering illegal music downloads, state media said Monday.

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French Labels Gets Tough On Piracy

From Aymeric Pichevin, Billboard:

French independent labels collecting society SPPF has warned it would no longer tolerate Internet firms using the music of its members without authorization.

In a statement issued Dec. 17, the organization stated, "For years, SPPF has been observing that online music services are launched prior to any negotiation to get right holders' authorizations."

This strategy, acknowledges SPPF director general Jérôme Roger, complements the groundbreaking agreement signed by French government, right holders and ISPs in November to prevent online piracy. "This agreement is designed to fight individual infringements," explains Roger. "Here we fight illicit reproduction from professional services."

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MPAA Wins Case Against TorrentSpy

From InfoWorld:

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has won a lawsuit against the operators of TorrentSpy.com, with the judge ruling in favor of the MPAA because the Web site operators tampered with evidence.

In a ruling that could have implications for the privacy of Web site users, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, ruled that TorrentSpy has infringed MPAA copyrights in a default judgment against the operators of the site.

Cooper, in a ruling made public Monday, agreed with the MPAA that defendants Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker and Valence Media had destroyed evidence after another judge had ordered them to keep server logs, user IP (Internet Protocol) addresses and other information. TorrentSpy billed itself as a central location to find files distributed on BitTorrent P-to-P (peer-to-peer) networks.

The defendants' conduct was "obstreperous," Cooper wrote in her decision. "They have engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to destroy evidence and have provided false testimony under oath in a effort to hide evidence of such destruction," she wrote.

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RIAA Brief Misinterpreted

From Nick Mokey, Digital Trends News:

A widely misinterpreted RIAA brief has caused a major stir, but does not say that making copies of CDs for private use is illegal.

A brief filed by the Recording Industry Association of American in the case of Capitol v. Howell set blogs alight this week with cries of unfairness, by those who believed the RIAA was claiming that even private copies of paid-for CDs were illegal. As it turns out, that’s not the full story. A careful examination of the brief shows that the RIAA is taking the same stance it has always taken: sharing music is illegal.

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DOJ: $222,000 File Sharing Fine Not Excessive

From FMQB:

Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota woman who lost her court battle against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) over file sharing, has also lost her appeal in the case. The U.S. Department of Justice determined that the $222,000 in damages that were awarded to the RIAA - $9,250 for each of the 24 songs shared - is constitutional and is not excessive.

"Although defendant claims that plaintiffs' damages are 70 cents per infringing copy, it is unknown how many other users - potentially millions - committed subsequent acts of infringement with the illegal copies of works that the defendant infringed," Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bucholtz wrote. "It is impossible to calculate the damages caused by a single infringement, particularly for infringement that occurs over the Internet."

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Judge Dismisses LimeWire Antitrust Suit

From Alex Veiga, AP:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge on Monday threw out an antitrust lawsuit that the operator of the LimeWire online file-sharing service filed against a coalition of major record labels.

U.S. District Judge Gerard E. Lynch in New York ruled that Lime Group LLC failed to make its case that it has been harmed by the recording companies' business practices, and he granted the companies' motion to dismiss the claims.

Lynch also dismissed several claims brought under state laws "without prejudice," which gives New York-based Lime Group the option to pursue the claims in state court.

In his 45-page ruling, Lynch wrote that the vast majority of Lime Group's claims "fail to allege an adverse effect on competition market-wide."

LimeWire allows computer users to make files on their PCs available to a multitude of other computer users all connected to each other, a method known as peer-to-peer file-sharing.

Lime Group had claimed the record labels sought to monopolize the online distribution of music and refused to license their works to the company in an effort to put it out of business.

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ASCAP Sues WRIK/Metropolis for Copyright Infringement

From Radio Online:

ASCAP, along with other music groups, have filed a $1.5 million suit against Sun Media's WRIK-FM/Metropolis, IL, and GM Samuel K. Stratemeyer. The suit, filed on November 15 in U.S. District Court, says WRIK "willfully infringed" on copyrighted material by playing songs from the repertory of the ASCAP without license.

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Sony Sued in Meat Loaf Logo Row

From BBC News:

Sony Music must pay $5m (£2.4m) to a small record company for missing its logo off Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell album, a US court has ruled.

The decision comes after a court settlement in 1998 decided Sony should include the Cleveland International logo on future copies of the record.

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