As the RIAA's lawsuit campaign of suing several hundred at a time seems to be having less effect after each round, the global recording industry has decided launch its largest ever quantity of lawsuits targeting individuals who share music online. These cases cover 16 countries, including Switzerland, Sweden, Argentina, Singapore and Hong Kong which have never targeted file sharers for illegal file sharing up until this time.
So far, close to 20,000 file-sharers have been sued to date, of which 3,800 live outside of the US according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Out of over 15,597 people sued in the US, so far there have been 3,590 out of court settlements. While the RIAA have mainly targeted the FastTrack and Gnutella networks, the IFPI has aimed to catch culprits over a wide range of networks, which also include eDonkey (which eMule uses), DirectConnect, BitTorrent, WinMx and SoulSeek.
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The latest move targeted 2,100 alleged uploaders using peer-to-peer (P2P) networks in 16 nations including the UK, France, Germany and Italy. File-sharers in Switzerland, Sweden, Argentina, Singapore and Hong Kong are also facing cases for the first time. Thousands of people have agreed to pay compensation since the campaign began. The number of cases brought by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) outside the US since March 2004 now stands at more than 3,800. In the US, civil lawsuits have been brought against more than 15,597 people since September 2003 and there have been 3,590 settlements. |
According to the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) in Ireland, 50 of these cases have been filed in Ireland with the majority sharing around 1,000 tracks or more online, 6 of which were sharing out in excess of 2,000 tracks. According to a discussion on the radio with Dick Doyle, the IRMA is initially targeting the users who share out the largest collections of music and aim to later move on to those who download music illegally also. In the first round of lawsuits in Ireland back in April, 17 cases were filed, of which 12 have settled for an average of €2,500 per case. Three of the remaining will be sued and they are still trying to track down the remaining two.
They also mention that between 2001 and 2004, music sales in Ireland fell by about €28 million. In my opinion, this is not surprising considering how expensive CDs cost here, but then again the IRMA wants consumers to consider "cheaper" legal pay-per-download services. As most (if not all) ADSL providers in Ireland limit the uplink to 128k, not to mention the 1GB upload limit for Eircom's most popular broadband package, chances are that shutting down these particular users will have negligible effect to the P2P networks.
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Source: BBC News
