Just when most thought lawsuits for file sharing were mainly limited to the US, more and more are springing up throughout Europe; particularly in Denmark. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry announced that it will sue 24 individual infringing users in Denmark for sharing music. Like the RIAA, the IFPI claims that P2P piracy is causing a massive slide in music sales throughout Europe and plans further lawsuits in Britain, France and Sweden next and other countries in the near future.
IFPI's chief executive Jay Berman claims that suing individuals on file sharing networks and promoting legal services such as iTunes is paying off. Since the music industry began suing mid last year, the number of infringing music files across file-sharing networks fell from 1 billion last June to 700 million at present according to the IFPI.
Recently one person in German had to pay compensation of €8,000 after being caught with 6,000 pirate MP3s and 70 pirate music CDs. A further 88 Danish users agreed to pay compensation of €3,000 on average with 23 still negotiating and 30 more from Italy are awaiting trial. It looks like that new EUCD weapon is being put to some use now. DamnedIfIknow submitted the following news via our news submit :
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"It's inevitable," said Jay Berman, IFPI's chief executive, when asked of the likelihood those countries would be included. He added that Japan, the world's second largest music market, is also a strong candidate for lawsuits as recorded music sales there continue to slide. The music industry has already sued 2,947 people in the United States and has announced more than 230 suits in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada. (Further down) The number of infringing music files available on file-sharing networks fell to 700 million this month, down 30 percent from the all-time peak of 1 billion in June 2003, the trade group said. And according to an IFPI survey, 70 percent of those polled in France, Germany, Denmark and the United Kingdom are aware that the unauthorized trade of copyrighted music is illegal. Read the full article here. |
Until recently, most Europeans still thought it was safe to freely share their content online. Now the IFPI thinks that the RIAA approach will do the trick in stopping this and improving music sales again, although there may be many other reasons why music sales are slipping. Other factors include copy-protected crippled CDs, movie sales on the rise, more gamers, listening to the radio instead, watching music video channels and other sources of entertainment such as cable and satellite TV. There have been various studies also showing that file sharing does not directly lead to declining music sales.
Fell free to discuss and read more about the issues of P2P file sharing and legal alternatives on our Music Downloads, P2P & Legal Issues Forum.
Source: CNET News - The Net
