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Fight Against Illegal Filesharing Moves Overseas
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/31/b...ss/31music.html
| quote: | Fight Against Illegal File Sharing Is Moving Overseas
By MARK LANDLER
Published: March 31, 2004
FRANKFURT, March 30 - The music industry announced legal action Tuesday against 247 people accused of illegal file sharing outside the United States, taking its war against Internet piracy abroad for the first time.
Recording industry associations in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada have filed lawsuits or taken other legal action, aiming mainly at heavy users accused of offering a large number of songs online.
"This is not a U.S.-only problem," said Jay Berman, chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in London. "We always knew we would have to take action outside the United States. At some point, you have to ask yourself when. That moment was now."
The unauthorized swapping of music has wreaked as much havoc on the global industry as it has in the United States. In Germany, where the effects of file sharing are compounded by the rampant "burning" of songs onto blank CD's, sales of recorded music plunged nearly 20 percent last year.
Mr. Berman said the threat of legal action had pinched the renegade file sharing industry. The most popular service, Kazaa, offered more than 900 million files in April 2003, shortly before the industry filed its first lawsuits in the United States, according to Mr. Berman. On Monday night, it offered 550 million files.
"That's still a lot," he acknowledged. "But we believe the number of files being copied has shrunk."
The recording industry said the lawsuits could result in fines or damage payments amounting to several thousand euros a person. Still, the legal actions taken vary widely from country to country.
In Italy, 30 people have been charged with criminal copyright infringement by the public prosecutor's office in Milan, which ordered raids to seize computers, hard disks, storage systems and 50,000 files. In Germany, 68 people have been reported to the authorities for suspected violations.
Denmark has sent "civil demand" letters to 120 people, ordering them to stop illegal sharing of files and to pay compensation, or face legal action. In Canada, the identities of 29 people accused of large-scale file sharing are being sought from their Internet service providers.
The nature of the industry's campaign - it announced no lawsuits in Britain or France, nor any in Asia - attests to the patchwork of copyright laws outside the United States. While the European Union has passed a uniform copyright protection law similar to that in the United States, it has yet to be ratified by all of the union's current 15 member states.
The existing cases are being prosecuted under national laws, Mr. Berman said. He predicted that lawsuits would be filed in other countries, but said the timing is dependent on stricter enforcement of copyright protection.
The British Phonographic Industry, which represents Britain's record labels, has continued sending warning messages to users of file sharing services, though it, too, has threatened legal action.
Critics of the lawsuits said the piecemeal approach would bewilder consumers, particularly in Europe.
"People won't understand the message," said Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Jupiter Research in London. "If you're file sharing in Germany, you're in trouble. If you're file sharing in Spain, you're fine."
Mr. Mulligan also questioned the timing of the lawsuits, since, he said, Europe still does not have compelling legal alternatives to the unauthorized services. Sony has announced plans to offer its online music service, Connect, in June in Britain, France and Germany. Apple Computer has also indicated it will introduce its popular iTunes service in Europe later this year.
"This could hurt them," Mr. Mulligan said. "People will think, 'If you try to source music online, you'll have legal action taken against you.' ''
Mr. Berman made the opposite argument, saying that the lawsuits would clear the field for legitimate services. He said that there were more than 50 legal online music services already in operation in Europe and that more than 650,000 people were downloading songs through them.
Still, Mr. Berman said he was prepared for the same backlash that erupted after the American labels began suing file sharers last year. Nearly 2,000 lawsuits have been filed there, including 532 fresh cases announced last week by the Recording Industry Association of America.
"We're not going into this with the idea that we're trying to win a popularity contest," he said.
Gerd Gebhardt, chairman of the German Phonographic Industry Association, stressed that the legal action was aimed at "uploaders" - those who copy songs in large numbers and place them on servers for distribution - rather than people who download the occasional song for personal use.
Under German law, the downloading of music is illegal, too, but only if the user knows the material is copyrighted.
Mr. Gebhardt conceded that the campaign would do little to stem the main piracy problem in Germany: CD burning. Last year, according to a market survey, Germans copied music onto 325 million CD's. The German recording industry sold 133 million CD's with recorded music.
"In the case of one-to-one CD burning, we can't do anything," he said. "But with downloading, we have legal recourse." |
In a way, it surprises me that it took so long for countries besides the U.S. to start suing downloaders, considering the music piracy market is much higher in overseas countries. However, does this change the view people have of the RIAA? Is it no longer some irritation for downloaders, and maybe its message was correct the entire time?
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also this people are waaaay to narrow minded...
