| Subject: new wave of lawsuits |
Author:
Betty
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Date Posted: 10:42:11 06/12/04 Sat
In reply to:
Betty
's message, "RIAA & goofy laws." on 17:09:22 02/01/04 Sun
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A new wave of lawsuits is being prepared against the most prolific Internet song-swappers as part of an expanding global crackdown on Internet piracy, music industry officials said on Tuesday.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said it will sue 24 individuals in Denmark for trading music files online and it warned Britain, France and Sweden that they could be added to the list of target countries.
"It's inevitable," said Jay Berman, IFPI CEO, when asked of the likelihood those countries would be included. He added that Japan, the world's second largest music market, is also a strong candidate for lawsuits as recorded music sales there continue to slide.
The music industry has already sued 2,947 people in the United States and has announced more than 230 suits in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada.
"On the strength of the developments in Denmark, Germany and Italy, we can confirm there will be more legal actions in other countries in the near future," Berman said.
The industry blames the extensive online trade of free music for contributing to a massive slide in recorded music sales.
A year ago it launched a multi-pronged effort to promote sanctioned online music stores such as Apple Computer Corp's iTunes while suing those who share their music collection with others on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as Kazaa and WinMX.
Berman said the carrot-and-stick strategy is showing signs of paying off with the number of infringed music files on P2P sites in decline, and awareness growing among consumers that file-sharing is a criminal activity.
Turning up the heat
The number of infringing music files available on file-sharing networks fell to 700 million this month, down 30 percent from the all-time peak of 1 billion in June, 2003, the trade group said.
And, according to an IFPI survey, 70 percent of those polled in France, Germany, Denmark and the UK were aware that the unauthorized trade of copyrighted music is illegal.
Despite the successes, the trade group intends to turn up the heat on lawsuits.
"You will continue to see that countries that were part of the first wave of announcements will continue to bring cases," Berman said.
The IFPI said it scored a recent victory in the German courts against a 23-year-old man caught with a collection of 6,000 pirated MP3 files on his computer hard drive and 70 CDs containing further files. The man had agreed to pay 8,000 euros ($9,855) in compensation.
In Italy, 30 individuals charged by a public prosecutor with copyright infringement are awaiting trial.
And 88 individuals in Denmark have either paid or agreed to pay compensation averaging 3,000 euros each for file-sharing. Another 23 Danes are negotiating levels of compensation, the IFPI said.
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