New wave of lawsuits against European P2P users

The music industry has launched a new wave of lawsuits against individual
P2P users in Europe. For the first time individual users were targeted in
Finland, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands. These countries join
Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the UK, where litigation
started last year.

During a press conference in the Netherlands on 12 April 2005, in the
presence of IFPI CEO John Kennedy, the local representative of the
entertainment industry Brein announced it would start 32 court cases
against individual alleged infringers. In order to obtain the identifying
data of the users behind IP-addresses from which music was unlawfully
uploaded, Brein will sue five Dutch internet providers (Planet Internet,
Het Net, @Home, Wanadoo and Tiscali). These 5 providers had agreed earlier
in April to forward complaints from the right holders to their customers.
In total, Brein sent 50 intimidating cease and desist letters, demanding
the recipient would identify him- or herself, agree to pay an average fine
of 2.100 euro and sign a unlimited binding agreement to never ever
“directly or indirectly be involved in any way or have an interest in
unlawfully distributing materials on the internet”. If ever again cought
in such a very broadly defined act, the signee agrees to pay a fine of
5.000 euro per day.

Only 7 people were shocked into signing all their rights away. None of the
providers handed over the identifying data voluntarily, claiming only a
judge could define if such a privacy violation was legitimate. EDRI-member
Bits of Freedom has an anonymised copy of one of these letters on its
website (in Dutch only).

According to an international IFPI press release 248 people in Europe have
faced sanctions or paid fines or compensation averaging more than 3,000
euro each. IFPI also seems extremely proud of prosecuting professionals:
“Those who are paying the price of piracy include a German judge, a French
cook and a British local councillor.” With the 9.900 cases already dealt
with or pending in the US, in total IFPI is now dealing with 11.552
lawsuits.

E-zine The Register reports that in the UK on 19 April a judge ordered 5
ISPs to hand over the identifying data of 33 filesharers. The case brings
the number of people in the UK to face legal action for illegal file
sharing up to 90.

IFPI press release (12.04.2005)
http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/press/20050412.html

Letter Brein (in Dutch, 31.03.2005)
http://www.bof.nl/docs/breinvordering.pdf

UK court orders ISPs to reveal IDs of 33 filesharers (19.04.2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/19/bpi_p2p_lawsuits/