While Eircom’s anti-piracy suit seemed to be based initially on its accidental advertising of broadband packages on the relatively unsavoury ThePirateBay, the latest development in the copyright holders versus Irish ISPs stakes is based on a lack of cooperation in efforts to stop copyright infringement.
At the moment, the case seems to be that EMI, Sony, Universal and WEA have initiated court proceedings against both BT and UPC (which owns Chorus and NTL). The difference in this case seems to be that, where Eircom acquiesced quite quickly, bowing to legal pressure from copyright holders, the response has been a little less favourable from UPC.
Indeed, the UPC response, while not openly flaunting piracy, is about as close as you can get to it without running into some real legal trouble. It runs, “There is no Irish law requiring ISPs to control, access or block the internet content its users download. In addition, the rights holders’ proposal gives rise to serious concerns for data privacy and consumer contract law.” While USP’s dedication to its clients’ privacy is genuinely pretty impressive, it remains to be seen how well this argument will stand up in Irish courts.
As the Sunday Business Post points out, EMI Ireland saw its CD sales and pre-tax profits fall by five percent in the last year, so it’s reasonably clear why they’re out for blood. The only real problem with this reasoning is that business is bad for everyone at the moment; less employment means that, in general, people have less disposable income, which all adds up to lower sales for companies like EMI Ireland… Certainly they’re losing money on the whole affair, but there are other places to level the blame than at ISP’s for this recent drop.
You can read more about the ongoing situation with UPS, BT, Sony, EMI, Universal and WEA at the Sunday Business Post, here.
You can read a bit more about the whole Eircom/PirateBay debacle here.
Tags: ireland, broadband, eircom, chorus, ntl, upc, Irish, Piracy, pirate bay
June 22, 2009 at 3:13 pm |
Interesting ! Really interested to hear what stance BT are taking on this ! In all honesty ISP’s have no right to invade privacy to see what we are doing online, its like check to see if someone goes to a library instead of a bookstore !
June 22, 2009 at 4:30 pm |
I know exactly what you mean Oisin, but they can be totally hamstrung by copyright holders like EMI/Sony etc. in these kinds of situations. I think it’s a question of whether or not the ISP can be considered to be complicit in the crime, which is sort of a grey area.
I think Eircom only found themselves in such an untenable position because Double-Click ads for them ended up on ThePirateBay. I’m very curious to see how BT and UPC deal with the whole affair since they’re not in that kind of sticky situation. Should be interesting
June 24, 2009 at 2:10 am |
They cant blame the ISPs for that they are ripping off peoples money and people prefer the cheaper option (whatever that is …)