A coalition of music industry bodies, including the Alliance MCPRS and the Association of Independent Music, is lobbying for intellectual property amended to allow Internet Service Provider (ISP) should be sued for illegal file sharing on their networks. Commentators have said that their efforts are wrong and not economically feasible. Currently, ISP s' are not obliged to use the contents of their networks much in the same way that telephone companies that are not for the policeLiability for obscene calls.
The problem stems from the fact that file sharing is the main reason why a growing number of broadband users, and is a lot of bandwidth, the provider to sell to their customers in office. If file sharing is banned, to lose your ISP would be a significant percentage of their income. The crucial point is that attempts to use the content of millions of people that the police would be difficult and very expensive.
Until now, the music industrytrying to share file-sharing fight through the pursuit of individual users, large libraries of copyrighted material. File sharing is only illegal copyrighted material if they have released. Recently, the British Phonographic Industry to convince the two ISP - Tiscali and Cable & Wireless trying - to suspend the accounts of 59 users, but without success.
It should also be noted that, under the Data Protection Act, Internet service providers to prevent the disclosure by a third party the names ofUsers without their permission or a court order. This means that the identification of the owner of a copyright generally only capable of criminals by an IP address. When a copyright owner who wants to sue an offender must first force the ISP for the name of the offender to disclose the results to the specific IP address to function. There is a precedent from 1970 comes Norwich Pharmacal case, which may be applicable in such circumstances. The former states that an allowable(which may be a copyright holder to sue) to B (CAN) completely innocent force ISPs to identify the culprits from B to C (which may file sharing). This precedent has been invoked successfully in cases of defamation online, and can potentially be used to identify file sharers very active a.
There were also indications that the ISP could become a provider of licensed music service. However, it seems economically feasible. First, it is not part of an ISP 'sTry another ISP core business and "working with the music industry to agree to licensing fees has up to now not possible.
Comment: With regard to the law we see much better for the music industry that the technology has improved to the point where a change in the distribution of music is now necessary. You should use our website, rather than the police - is a recent example of Apple I-Tunes. If you can downloadlicensed, versions of good quality (maybe with the bundle 'Extras') at an affordable cost illegal file-sharing may become less attractive.
Please contact us for more information on Music Copyright on enquiries@rtcoopers.com
Http: / / www.rtcoopersiplaw.com Visit or http://www.rtcoopers.com/practice_intellectualproperty.php
© RT Coopers, 2006. This note gives no comprehensive or complete statement of the law on matters that can not be discussedit constitutes legal advice. It's all about general issues. Specialist advice should always be sought in the legal relation to the particular situation.