Two weeks ago the music industry, headed by the IFPI, gave Norway’s largest Internet provider ‘Telenor’ an ultimatum; block access to The Pirate Bay within 14 days or we will take you to court. The ISP has now announced that it wont give in to IFPI’s demands, lawsuit or not.
Indicating support for The Pirate Bay team, hackers have attacked several of the IFPI’s websites, defacing one of them with a message for the trial prosecution. However, Peter Sunde feels the attack is misguided and says such actions don’t help their cause. He is pleading with the hackers to stop.
At least on the surface, most in the mainstream music industry agree: illicit file-sharing is evil. However, when you aren’t getting paid to have a certain opinion, things can change. No longer taking a salary from his former company, Ex-IFPI chairman and EMI director Per Eirik Johansen speaks freely.
Earlier this week a Danish court decided that an ISPs have to block access to The Pirate Bay. In response to the judgment, three ISPs have already announced that they will take the case to the Supreme Court. In addition, The Pirate Bay itself now says it will sue the anti-piracy outfit IFPI if the ISPs fail to overturn the ruling.
This week, Irish ISP Eircom and the music industry avoided an expensive legal battle, and settled out of court with a deal to disconnect alleged pirates. Eircom didn’t want to start using filtering technology to thwart pirates, so it made a deal with the labels instead – and it sucks.
Up until today, the ‘Big Four’ record labels were taking legal action against Ireland’s biggest ISP, Eircom, in order to force it to employ filtering technology to stop online pirates. The case has been aborted as Eircom, at the behest of the music industry, has agreed to start disconnecting those accused of illicit file-sharing.
The Internet has been a blessing for the music industry. Although the RIAA and IFPI frequently complain about piracy, their own research shows that only 10% of all illegal downloads are considered to be a loss in sales. Meanwhile, piracy has shown them how to monetize music online, and turn it into profit.
Ung Pirat, the youth organization of the Swedish Pirate Party received over 1.3 million Krona from the Swedish government yesterday. The money – government funding to political youth organizations – was heavily criticized by anti-piracy lobbyists.
In line with its new strategy of trying to force ISPs to take responsibility for the actions of their customers, in 2008 the ‘Big Four’ record labels, headed up by the IFPI, announced they would take Ireland’s largest ISP to court. The case began yesterday and is already proving controversial.
In February 2008, a Danish court ordered the ISP Tele2 to block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay. The controversial ruling was under appeal but today, in a move which will delight the IFPI, the High Court upheld the decision to force the ISP to stop its customers from accessing the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker.
A man described as an “anti-piracy hero” has been gunned down in Thailand. Kasim Cha Tong, a former director of the MPA and anti-piracy campaigner for the IFPI, died by a single shot from a sawn-off shotgun. The killer escaped. Police are investigating the possibility that this was an assassination.
