Aussie Music Industry Sues Host Over MP3 Site

• By theWHIR.com , October 22, 2003

•   Digg
    Delicious
    Reddit
    Newsvine
    Stumbleupon
    Twitter
  Facebook

  (close)

  From:

  To:

  (close)
  Share | Send | Print | Comments (0)

October 22, 2003 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- The Australian music industry has filed a lawsuit against E-Talk Communications (etalk.net.au), an Australian Internet service provider, for profiting off the provision of copyright-infringing digital music files, according to a report in ZDNet Australia. The applicants in the lawsuit include Universal Music Australia, EMI Music Australia, Sony Music Entertainment (Australia), Warner Music Australia, BMG Australia and Festival Records.

Michael Speck, manager of Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), who led the industry's investigation, said in ZDNet Australia that this is the first time the music industry has accused an ISP of being directly involved in piracy by allowing its network to be used for trading of copyright-infringing files.

"This case proves what the music industry has been saying about the Internet industry for many years, that music piracy is an integral part of the ISP business model," Speck told ZDNet. "If things don't change we'll be going after more ISPs.?

According to the report, the charges stem from an 11-month investigation into the Web site www.mp3s4free.net. The registrant of the domain name, Stephen Cooper, was also charged.

Speck said in the affidavit that the ISP benefited economically from the site, ZDNet reported. "In my experience investigating the revenue structure of Web sites such as mp3s4free.net the ISP hosting the Web site, stands to benefit economically from the increased consumption of bandwidth that would result from an increase in the flow of traffic to the Web site and an increase in the number of sound recordings downloaded by visitors to the Web site due to the large size of music files."

The site allegedly received 7 million unique visitors in the past 12 months.

• Print | Comments (0)

OLDER:  Reliance Group to Acquire FLAG Telecom

|

NEWER:  Allstream Unveils Managed Intrusion Services

• (0) Comments
• View Post