Copyright Law

Record Labels Target More Irish ISPs for ?Three-Strikes?

By soulxtc

Tries to hold responsible for copyright infringement occurring on its network by illegal file-sharing customers.

The music industry, led by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA), is suing two Irish ISPs, BT Ireland and UPC Ireland, to make them take action against illegal file-sharers on their networks.

BT Ireland and UPC Ireland customers are reported to be among the country’s biggest users of P2P networks.

The IRMA has been successfully waging a battle to force ISPs into instituting a "three-strikes" system without legislation since last March when it first took Irish ISP Eircom to court to force it to begin filtering illegal P2P downloads of copyrighted music.

Eircom refused, saying it shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of its customers, and it had no legal obligation to monitor traffic on its network. IRMA then took the ISP to court in order to hold it responsible for allowing copyright infringement to occur.

Eircom eventually agreed to an out-of-court settlement with IRMA this past January. It promised to "inform, warn, and disconnect" those customers accused of copyright infringement (Eircom is still working out the details of how customer disconnections would work, and so far no one has been disconnected).

It even agreed to go a step further and block access to BitTorrent tracker sites.

'This is a breakthrough,' said Willie Kavanagh, IRMA chairman, afterwards. 'I think all parties will be happy that's the end of it. We will talk to the other ISPs in the country to hammer out a similar agreement."

IRMA did just that, writing to other ISPs demanding they implement a similar "three-strikes" system. They apparently refused and so IRMA decided to sue both BT Communications Ireland and UPC Communications Ireland.

"UPC intends to vigorously defend its position in court," said an unidentified UPC spokesperson, adding that "there is no basis under Irish law requiring ISPs to control, access or block the internet content its users download."

Its says that it refuses to "agree to a request that goes beyond what is currently provided under existing legislation."

UPC proposed a "stakeholder forum" with ISPs and government to find a more amenable solution but IRMA reportedly rejected the idea. Why agree to meet when it seems to be getting what it wants anyway?

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on June 23, 2009 (boomark / email).