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
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“Why agree to meet when it seems to be getting what it wants anyway?”
Heh, indeed. When you push your chips in the first time and win the pot, you don’t look at the other players and negotiate the rest of the game. Of course, for the ISPs, there are consequences for losing your chips in all of this.
Against any of the Internet, sometimes it is just like a small downtown
I’m just glad my ISP isn’t Eircom, BT Ireland or Chorus. This is getting ridiculous. I’d better start doing some serious downloading and sharing…
When will they just accept that most internet users are file shares and charge us a small premium to download what ever the fu*k we want. That way they could give some of the money to the greedy companies like the IRMA.
I live in Ireland and its a real shame what is happening. Eircom are an extremely weak company and one that has no interest in furthering internet services here. They do not care about, or understand the gravity of their decisions. People just need to avoid companies like this. If it went to court, IRMA would loose as there is zero legislation covering this kind of thing. Good luck to UPC and I hope they follow through on their promise to defend themselves and their users.
Instead of trying to coerce ISPs, why don’t the big boys trying to shut down the file sharers just purchase a controlling interest in the ISP’s or even pay them to control file sharing. If they are in fact losing “billions” because of file sharing, then they ought to be able to easily pay either for a controlling interest in the ISP’s or pay the ISP’s directly because of their sudden revenue windfall if access to torrent sites disappears. That way the ISP’s source of revenue would be from the recording and film industry
The sooner EU legislation is brought in to deal with this sort of legalised extortion the better. IRMA haven’t a leg to stand on and only won their case against Eircom because Eircom are as spineless as they are inept.
I often wonder how much monet the RIAA has wasted taking cases against moms and dead grannies. High profile legal eagles don;t come cheap. Surely that money would have been better spent going to the starving artists off whose talent these leeches live off.
And don’t get me started on IMRO (the royalty collectors/protection racketeers). I have no affiliation with them nor would I ever. yet if I were to play in a pub here the owner would have to pay them a fee for having me. Why? I won’t see a red cent of it.
I can only hope this insane greed will ultimately eat itself.
There has to be a better way.
The Record Labels’ stupidity does indeed seem to be quite infectious.
Lets curse them to stop selling any dvds and cds and RMA go BROKE!
And lets wish musicians to sell their songs BY THEMSELVES, only online in customer-friendly prices taking the FULL price not just 5-7% and not having to deal again with shitbags, shitcompanies and shitorganizations like IRMA!