High Court in London orders ISP's to hand over pirates ID's

The High Court has ordered that the names and addresses of 28 alleged music pirates be handed over to the British Phonographic Industry Ltd., or BPI.

As Americans already know too well, this is the the first step to suing people that are accused of sharing copyrighted music on the Internet.

The ruling is a victory for both the BPI and its umbrella organization, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, IFPI, which announced earlier this month that its affiliates were filing a total of 459 lawsuits against alleged Internet pirates in Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Austria. The lawsuits target people alleged to have put hundreds of copyright songs onto Internet file-sharing networks and offered them to millions of people worldwide without permission. The IFPI claims piracy is behind a global slump in music sales that began in 2000. It says worldwide sales of recorded music fell 7.6 percent in 2003, following a similar drop the previous year. U.S. music sales have been on the rebound since fall 2003. The court order issued Thursday by Blackburne requires the service providers, or ISPs, to identify the 28 individuals within two weeks. The BPI called the 28 "major file-sharers" who were providing an estimated 7 million British people, and unknown millions worldwide, with illegal downloads of music

Those of you interested may visit the Rapid City Journal for the full story. You might also stop by the Euro-Copyrights site to get up to speed on the digital laws in Europe. In addition, if you think you could be of some help over there, we are looking for some contributors from several countries.

Source: Rapid City Journal