Big Music’s European file sharing onslaught
p2pnet.net News:- Big Music has initiated another stage of its carefully orchestrated hardest-of-the-hard-sell marketing plan to force music lovers around the world to buy ‘product’.
Its IFPI and other enforcement units in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada have launched “the first wave of international lawsuits charging individuals with illegally file-sharing copyrighted music”.
A total of 247 “alleged illegal file-sharers face legal action in a move that steps up the industry’s international campaign against online copyright theft,” says the IFPI in a puff release, also threatening that, “Further waves of lawsuits against major offenders will be launched in different countries in the coming months.
“We have made it clear that file-sharing without the permission of the copyright holder is illegal, that it amounts to ‘file-stealing’, and that it affect jobs and livelihoods across the whole industry,” says IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) boss Jay Berman, former head of the RIAA.
This latest effort comes on the heels of news that, “Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates,” as Felix Oberholzer (Harvard Business School) and Koleman Strumpf (UNC Chapel Hill) say in their empirical analysis the effect of file sharing on record sales.
And Big Music is having a record year in Australia.
Nonetheless, “We will not stand by while thousands of people involved in the creation of music see their careers and livelihoods destroyed,” states Berman in his role as Commissioner of the music industry’s international pseudo police force.
“The message is that people are at a real risk of being sued or prosecuted if they continue to rip off those who make music.”
The puff piece failed to provide details on who, where, what or when.
