IFPI 'First Wave' Sues 247 In Europe & Canada

securitas writes "AP and many others report that the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry - IFPI - has sued 247 accused file-sharers in Germany, Denmark, Italy and Canada as part of an unprecedented, coordinated attack. The IFPI represents the global recording industry through its members - national associations like the IFPIG, DRIA, FIMI, CRIA and RIAA - and says it will launch more international lawsuits in the months ahead. You may also want to read the official IFPI 'first wave' press release/related documents and a statement by the IFPI's chairman and CEO. Lots of coverage at AP/AJC, USA Today, the New York Times, Reuters/CNN Money, ZDNet/CNet, Bloomberg , netimperative and the BBC. The timing of the international legal attacks is especially interesting in light of the recent study that indicates file-sharing has a negligible impact on music sales."

Comments

Phonographic...

[Mick Ohrberg]

On first read, I thought it said Pornographic! That has got to be the only media that's probably shared more than music...

CCC calls for boycott

[Tom]

In reaction, the german Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has called for a boycott: German Page

This banner with the motto "Industry kills Music" is especially nice. The german text at the bottom translates to "And you are surprised that things are going badly?" and was part of a recent speech at a german music price ceremony where except for one indie band only badly casted, out-of-TV and largely joke-"stars" were on stage.
Oh, and the big bosses of the german music industry were present. According to news articles, they didn't exactly like being told the truth so bluntly and on live television...

Re:Isn't it unfair...

[Shakrai]

Isn't it unfair that Western Europe and the U.S. (Canada included ;-) ) have to support the entire worlds intellectual property industry? I mean, from pharmacueticals to CD's we have to bear the brunt of the cost burden that undoubtably would be reduced if these companies went after real pirates, ie. those with factories in 3rd world nations selling generic's and pressed/packaged digital media packages? Just seems unfair to me.

Why would they go after third-world pirates? Those guys are just increasing market-share when they would otherwise presumably be buying from local media/software vendors. Why would they want them doing that?

But you can bet your ass they'll go after us -- we don't have any other sources to buy their product from so why not? Whatever other sources we might have had they took away with the product design (DVD region codes) or DCMA.

They don't care if filesharing helps sales

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not interesting that they are suing at all. If filesharing helped music sales increase 1000% they still would be suing filesharers. They care about control of the media not sales. Filesharing is a threat to their business because filesharing makes their class of middleman obsolete. If artists release their music over kazaa what purpose would RIAA members serve?

Re:Someone clue me in here...

[Zweistein_42]

You can legally _download_ music in Canada - it is covered by the levies we pay on the media (yay!:). You cannot legally _upload_ (i.e. share) music, as that makes you a "distributor" (and thus not covered under any form of personal use). It's the same reason why it is legal (in Canada) for me to borrow your CD and make a copy of it... but NOT for you to copy your CD and give me the copy. Same end result of course, but in first case, I'm copying for my personal use - in the second case, you are distributing something you don't have a right to distribute. IANAL, but I've followed Canadian copyright law for a while - the particular statute is reasonably clear once you understand the distinction between personal use (copying for myself) and distributing (copying or making available to others)

Study results do not make it legal!

[morzel]

Repeat after me: just because the study proved that filesharing does not have a noticeable impact on CD sales does not make it legal!

Copyright law in many countries prevents you from distributing somebody elses work, plain and simple. These people are not being sued because they had some kind of tangible impact on sales, but because they were distributing copyrighted material to anybody (ie: nothing to do with fair use rights here).

These are the people that are making it bloody hard for the rest of us to get non-crippled CDs, because the recording industry thinks this is the way to fight them (which it incidentally is not, but that's a whole different story).

I'm glad the record industry is suing, because this is the way copyright conflicts should be dealt with: in court. Not with half-assed technological countermeasures that are making it a pain for the rest of us, and certainly not with lobbying legislation that will obliterate 'fair use' for their works.