While the RIAA are issuing round after round of lawsuits against users illegally sharing music online, several other music industries in other countries have started following the RIAA's actions. The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) has finally resorted to legal action also in belief that suing heavy uploader's will divert other downloader's away from P2P and back to the shops. They say they have sent out enough warning so far including instant messages to suspect P2P infringers and have no choice but to take legal action.
Their
legal action is against 28 UK large-scale file sharers that have made several thousand tracks available over file sharing networks including Kazaa, iMesh, Grokster, Bearshare and WinMX for violating the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
The BPI claim that file sharing has had a negative impact on its single sales and that the RIAA's approach has been a success in cutting back P2P available content by 30% and its users by 40% from April 2003. However, while the music labels are delighted with the BPI's action, some artists claim that file sharing is their only decent method of getting their music heard and getting established. GristyMcFisty submitted the following news via our news submit:
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The record labels' chief body said that these 'large-scale uploaders' used the Kazaa, Imesh, Grokster, Bearshare and WinMX networks to make music files available in contravention of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Specifically, section 16, which gives a copyright owner exclusive rights to copy and communicate their work, and section 20, which defines communication as including making work available 'in such a way that members of the public may access it from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.' Although record labels are largely in favour of the BPI's action, some artists have spoken out against it. Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos said recently that, 'File-sharing is something that has really helped us as a band in getting established. ... For us it has been global word of mouth that has helped our progress, not hindered it.' |
Like the initial round of RIAA lawsuits in the US, the BPI's action will likely cause an initial drop in P2P usage. However, despite round after round of lawsuits in the US, its impact has quickly worn off with P2P usage back on the rise in the US. This may end up being the case in the UK along with quite a lot of unhappy customers that have been victims (or had relatives or friends victim) of legal action.
Source: PC Pro Music/MP3 news
