The British Phonographic Industry has won a fight against unauthorised file sharing after two men who refused to settle with the BPI were put through court action and the court ruled against both men. The BPI accused these two along with three others of making 8,906 songs in total publicly available over the Internet.
The first man claimed that the BPI had no direct evidence of infringement; however the judges dismissed this, ordering him to make an immediate payment of £5,000 to the BPI. His costs are estimated to be £13,500 with damages yet to be determined. The second man, a postman claimed that he was unaware that he was doing anything illegal and was not making any financial gain from this, however the judge also dismissed this declaring that ignorance is not a defence and ordered him to make an immediate payment of £1,500. His costs and damages have yet to be determined also.
So far, the BPI has sued a further 139 since October 2004 with most settling out-of-court for up to £6,500. The BPI mentioned that 51 of these being sued have a deadline of January 31st to settle to avoid court action. According to the BPI's lawyers, they say that this court ruling is a major step forward in the industry's fight against unauthorised file sharing. Thanks to StarGhost for letting us know about the following news:
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One of the men said he did not know he was acting illegally. The other said there was no evidence against him. The BPI has launched 139 similar cases since October 2004, most being settled out of court for up to £6,500. The two men, who the BPI decided not to name in publicising the cases, were accused along with three others of using peer-to-peer software to share 8,906 songs over the internet. |
For the others who are being sued in the UK, this court ruling makes it clear that if they don't settle, they are unlikely going to get away with any of the excuses like these have tried. Unfortunately, it does mean that people will have to be more careful when they install file sharing software as most will scan the hard drive for media to share out as well as automatically launch upon each start-up if the user does not be careful.
StarGhost added: I really don't believe that file sharing has been so detrimental to the sales of music singles. It's more cost effective to buy an album than a single hence the reason no-one buys them anymore. Consumers aren't stupid so why should they expect them to buy singles that are continously played on TV adverts, the radio and MTV? I would like to know how the BPI caught these people too. Were they running a file sharing network or were they simply found out to be using something like Bit Torrent or Limewire? How did they manage to prove they were illegally sharing music?
Feel free to discuss about file sharing and its legal issues on our Music Download, Peer to Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues forum.
Source: BBC News
