BBC News: Court rules against song-swappers
The UK music industry has won a landmark court case in its fight against illegal online music sharing.
High Court judges ordered two men to pay the British Phonographic Industry between £1,500 and £5,000 for making thousands of songs available online.
One of the men said he did not know he was acting illegally, the other said there was no evidence against him.
The BPI has launched 139 similar cases since October 2004, most being settled out of court for up to £6,500.
I really don’t believe that file-sharing is killing the music industry it might well be hitting their income from fewer CD sales but even that conclusion is in dispute.
I think there should be a distinction made between online file-sharers and the organised criminal gangs that are in the business of music piracy who are selling illegal CDs. The second group are the ones I believe should be targeted and the first group should be encouraged to choose legal alternatives.
I’m curious about the case against the first defendant in this landmark court case.
The first defendant, from King’s Lynn, said the BPI had no direct evidence of infringement, but the judges dismissed this and ordered him to make an immediate payment of £5,000.
Presumably the BPI did have direct evidence of the infringement which is why the judge dismissed this defence. So was the defence just a gambit that was almost certain to fail or did the defendant really believe there was no evidence, if so why would they believe that.
I am waiting for a legal challenge in such a case where the defendant has wiped all evidence from their own PC so all the evidence left will be the internet traffic logs associated with the IP addresses they used.
Tags: copyright
