Taiwan’s music industry suffered a setback yesterday when the Shihlin District Court found a local peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing operator not guilty of infringing intellectual property rights.
In the nation’s first ruling on file-sharing cases, the court found that Weber Wu (吳怡達), president of Ezpeer — which provides a for-fee platform for subscribers to swap files — did not engage in reproducing or publicly distributing works of copyright holders.
The court also said that current laws and regulations do not specifically ban or limit file-sharing activities.
“We will keep negotiating with record labels to find a way that would create benefits for us, the copyright holders and consumers,” Wu said at a press conference yesterday after the verdict was announced.
The plaintiff, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in Taiwan, which represents major record labels, said it would appeal the verdict.
“This is the darkest day for the music industry,” said Robin Lee (李瑞斌), secretary-general of IFPI in Taiwan. “We will appeal to the end.”
Lee said the association would also target individual file-sharers for further legal action.
The association has been waging a legal war on P2P operators for three years. A similar lawsuit against kuro.com.tw, Taiwan’s largest file-sharing site, has yet to be decided.
Lee said yesterday’s verdict would batter the already sagging music industry, citing the failure of the nation’s first legal online music distributor, iBIZ Entertainment Technology Corp, which was launched in November 2003, but shut down after 15 months.
Related
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- Dutch Court Releases Verdict on Kazaa
“This is the darkest day for the music industry,”
Wait a while and you’ll see how darker it get.