Music companies to take telecoms to court Sunday, June 21, 2009 By Adrian Weckler A High Court battle is looming between ‘the big four’ companies in the music industry and two of Europe’s biggest telecoms firms.
EMI, Universal, Sony and WEA have filed an action in the High Court against BT and UPC, which owns NTL and Chorus. The music companies claim that BT and UPC are refusing to clamp down on illegal file-sharing on their Irish broadband networks.
‘‘Under Irish copyright law, failure to do anything about illegal file-sharing makes UPC and BT part of the theft,” said Willie Kavanagh, managing director of EMI Ireland.
‘‘We have sent both of these companies information which is proof positive that their systems are being used for illegal internet file sharing, and neither of them has been in any way co-operative with us about it.
‘‘Therefore we have no other option than to sue them.” Last year, EMI Ireland saw its CD sales and pre-tax profits fall by 5 per cent. Kavanagh said that this was partly due to illegal online file-sharing. However, UPC has issued a robust response to the High Court action.
‘‘Should proceedings commence, UPC intends to vigorously defend its position in court,” said a spokesman for the company. ‘‘UPC will not agree to a request that goes beyond what is currently provided under existing legislation.
‘‘There is no basis under Irish law requiring ISPs [internet service providers] to control, access or block the internet content its users download. In addition, the rights holders’ proposal gives rise to serious concerns for data privacy and consumer contract law.”
Some smaller internet service producers have also signalled an intention to resist any court action by the music labels. ‘‘It’s very conceivable that a number of operators might fight this move,” said one ISP executive, who did not want to be named. ‘‘If we discovered that a customer was illegally file-sharing, we could limit their service so that they would not be able to do that.
‘‘But the music labels are telling us that this is not enough, that we must cut the customer off from our service forever. It’s draconian and over the top.”
Earlier this year, the record labels achieved an out-of-court settlement with Eircom, which undertook to introduce a ‘three strikes’ policy against customers identified as illegal file-swappers. While praised by musicians, the deal was criticised by ISPs and data privacy advocates as being an invasion of privacy rights.
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