Big Music claims UK win
p2p news / p2pnet: The Big Four record label cartel’s UK unit, the BPI, is patting itself on the back.
Two unnamed men, a father of two from Brighton in Sussex and a man from King’s Lynn in Norfolk are, “are liable for illegally distributing music over the internet using peer-to-peer filesharing programmes,” says the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) in a statement.
The statement is, however, another example of a standard Big Four misinformation puff piece. There’s no such offence as illegally distributing music onlined using p2p software and the men are liable for simple copyright infringement, if anything.
But, the cases were the first of their kind to be heard in Britain and, “could have implications for dozens of people who have refused to settle their cases,” says The Independent.
The BPI’s King’s Lynn victim said the BPI had no direct evidence of infringement, but his argument was rejected and he’s been ordered to pay £5,000, with (about $8,840) total costs are estimated at £13,500 (about $23,869) with damages expected to make the ultimate bill even more.
The other man, a father of two and postman from Brighton, said he didn’t know he was sharing and hadn’t been looking for financial gain, says the story.
But the judge ruled, “Ignorance is not a defence,” ordering the man to pay £1,500 (about $2,652) pending final determination of costs and damages.
(Thanks, Brighton Chris)
Also See:
The Independent – Landmark case spells doom for internet music swappers, January 27, 2006
January 27th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
There’s something weird about this. “His defence, that the BPI had no direct evidence of infringement, was rejected by the High Court and summary judgment was granted to the BPI without the need for a trial.”
That sounds like grounds for appeal to me. How can a case be decided without evidence?
I also haven’t been able to find any deatil about what they were actually charged with and whether it was a civil or criminal case.
January 27th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
“But the judge ruled, “Ignorance is not a defence,”
This little comment by the judge requires an analysis.
1. If the defendant had gone to ten lawyer before doing whatever he did, anything related to copyrights, each of the lawyers would have told the defendant something different. This is because in copyright matters, nothing is clear, even to lawyers. There is a reason for this. There is really one copyright law, the Amercan one, and hundreds of copies throughout the world.
The American law is the root law, and it is extremely confusing, even to lawyers. We all now the reason. The law is a bunch of patches written to satify the lobbying class and their masters, the copyright cartels.
Plaintiff’s lawyers continuously argue in court that an act is infringement while the defendant’s lawyer says it is not infringement. What each lawyer says depends on who he/she represents. Clearly when the one acused of infringement is not in the music business, the person has no reason to know the law and thus no reason to know if an act of copying is infringement, let alone the meaning of “illegally distributing music”.
I personally have gone through a lentghty case where we acused two music publishers of illegally distributing (through licensing) our music. It took the judge years to determine if our acusation were true or not. The judge determined that our allegation was mostly not true, even though the facts were as clear as anything could be. As it turned out the judge decided that the real theft (appropiation by unlawfully claiming ownership) of songs, including illegally registering the songs, is in itself not infringement, even though the appropiation caused us massive financial damage…. we could not exploit the grat music we own for years, to this very day. The details can be seen on my web page. The meaning: There is no way to predict what the judge will decide. As we say on our web page, “Stealing a song for many years is not as bad as singing it once”.
2. Most laws are too complex for the people, are mostly unreadable if the reader is not a lawyer and even the lawyers cannot interpret the law without being familiar with the related jurisprudence, usually very hard (and costly) to find. Evidently legislators are too lazy or too busy doing politics and fund raising to update the laws as they are in effect changed by court decisions.
I propose that the judge, and those that think alike, be taken down from their obsolete pedestal!
I wonder, when the judge was a kid and copied songs to cassettes, did he know if he was infringing?
I wonder, if RIAA acussed his son of being a criminal for copying a CD, will he not dend his son?
I wonder, if RIAA acussed his wifr of being a criminal for copying a CD, will he not dend his wife?
Ignorance is not a defence, it is a reason.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
January 28th, 2006 at 4:31 am
Dude… not only is your logic flawed, but your spelling is ATROCIOUS!
British copyright law is the basis for US copyright…
All the rest of what you say is equally foolish and would be a waste of time to answer….
January 28th, 2006 at 4:36 am
the case would be civil and the ‘No direct evidence of infringement’ probably relates to the fact that the BPI most likely just presented screen shots of what the defendent was offering for download in his share folder… so no direct proof of a download taking place was necessary… the fact of the offer was daming enough for this judge (and all the rest of the judges so far in these kind of cases)
The facts seem to be in… if you are offering copyrighted material for download without the permission of the copyright holder you are screwed if you get caught… that’s the law… like it or not.
January 28th, 2006 at 7:58 am
“British copyright law is the basis for US copyright…”.
Read the news once in a while.
The British are now the IP copycats and slaves to the master.
The big imperial power of IP has a name: US. Now whatever dumb idea is turned into law and practice in th US, everyone is, British and otherwise, forced to adopt.
January 28th, 2006 at 9:24 am
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1070
January 28th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
From the Slyck report.
“Although the term “illegal” refers to criminal cases and not civil cases such as this, one sticking point remains. The judge ruled that making files available online equated to copyright infringement – not the mere act of downloading.”
So what we have here as a precedent, if there is any precedent, is that it’s not ripping, downloading or uploading that is the issue but the offering for share. It’s not about the original source. It’s not about whether you paid for the music. it’s not about actual up or downloading. It’s purely about whether you offer it to others, regardless of whether anyone takes you up on the offer.
This does at least square with their actions on the real pirates who are selling rip off copies in the street markets. You don’t have to be caught actually selling, merely being there offering for sale is enough.
It’s also pretty clear that this makes life a great deal easier for the BPI. They don’t need to track actual traffic or prove where your music came from. All they need to do is match a “Browse user’s files” screenshot with an IP address combined with user information obtained from their ISP. And just as long as that screenshot includes a large number of file names and tag information that might reasonably be assumed to be mainstream music from BPI members.
So it appears that the message is clear from the BPI. Leach, don’t share. Share only with friends, not the world and his dog. So that’ll be Soulseek with “share only with contact list”, then. And points out that we need some anonymising proxies that work with common P2P file sharing programs.
January 30th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Are you really trying to say that whatever legislation is enacted in the United States regarding Intellectual Property rights, we in the UK are “forced” to adopt.
Errr, much as the US are the bully boys of the world at the moment and much as Blair enjoys licking Bush Jnr’s bottom, we do actually control our own affairs and set our own laws. Whilst I agree things are going the way of the US. That doesn’t mean that we are forced to follow suit.
Of course when the US take over the world they will be able to force their laws upon us. Until then, kindly keep your ill though out opinions to yourself.