ISPs reaction to British Phonographic Industry action

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) accused the ISPs Tiscali and
Cable&Wireless of harbouring filesharers and demanded the close up of 17 and
42 respectively..

BPI has already taken action against 139 uploaders, having settled in court
111 cases of them and considers its campaign against filesharers is going
well. However, it considers ISPs are failing to take effective measures stop
illegal filesharing.

BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson said, “We have demonstrated in the courts that
unauthorised filesharing is against the law. We have said for months that it
is unacceptable for ISPs to turn a blind eye to industrial-scale copyright
infringement.”

Cable&Wireless’ answered that it would take “whatever steps are
necessary to put the matter right,” meaning that any account used for
illegal filesharing would be closed. On the other hand Tiscali said it
wouldn’t close any accounts without more evidence of wrongdoing from the
music industry body. BPI had required from the ISPs: to suspend the relevant
customers until they enter into an agreement with BPI, to disclose the
personal details of the relevant customers and to conclude a legal agreement
with BPI.

Tiscali questioned the quality of the evidence provided, and, under the
provisions of the Data Protection Act, refused to give any personal data on
the account holders without a court order.

It has stated that, out of the 17 accounts under question, one customer was
contacted, in respect of whom BPI has “provided partial evidence of
communication to the public of copyrighted sound recordings”. The respective
customer was given seven days to provide an explanation. In case it does
not receive a proper explanation, Tiscali will suspend the user’s account
pending the resolution of BPI’s investigation, provided it received evidence
from BPI of a link between the user account and the IP address at the
relevant time.

For the rest of 16 accounts Tiscali is waiting for more proper evidence.
Tiscali has also stated that neither Tiscali, as an ISP, nor the BPI, as a
trade association, should act “as a regulator or law enforcement agency and
deny individuals the right to defend themselves against the allegations made
against them.”

Despite Tiscali’s answer, BPI is however pleased with the present outcome
being “hugely encouraged” by the ISP’s willingness to cooperate.
“The first thing is that they’ve already moved to suspend one account. Yes,
they wanted more evidence – we could challenge this in court, but we’re
happy to provide it. We’re pleased they are willing to cooperate,” said Matt
Phillips, spokesman for the BPI.

Tiscali and BPI in filesharing standoff (12.07.2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/12/tiscali_bpi/

BPI: ISPs must give filesharers the boot (10.07.2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/10/bpi_isps_boot/

Cable & Wireless likely to suspend file-sharers’ accounts (11.07.2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/11/bulldog_may_suspend/