Music Industry Sues Irish Government For Piracy

bs0d3 writes "The music industry has initiated a lawsuit against the Irish government for not having blocking laws on the books; on the theory that if blocking laws were in place then filesharing would go away. On Tuesday the music industry issued a plenary summons against the Irish government which is the first step towards making this litigation possible. This all began in October 2010 (EMI v. UPC), when an Irish judge ruled that Irish law did not permit an order to be made against an ISP requiring blocking of websites. Recently several ISPs across the European Union have been ordered by courts to block thepiratebay.org through legal maneuvers."

Comments

What Are They Expecting?

[Bob9113]

Gee, government, not fondling the MAFIAA's nuts enough, so they hit you. Now, are you going to say "I walked into a door" and let them do it again, or are you going to man up?

You know what happens when you give a bully your lunch money? He threatens you for it the next day.

Know what happens when you give the MAFIAA a yard? They take a mile.

There is only one way to stop a bully. Stand up to him.

There is only one way to stop the MAFIAA. Cut copyright to 50 years, and tell them if they don't back the fuck off, you're going to cut it to 20 years.

Battle of the Book

[o'reor]

I don't think the music industry realizes that they're facing a war. And not a simple legal war, a real war with real weapons and casualties too. For, indeed:

Many hundreds of years before the GPL was even a twinkle in Richard Stallman's eye, an Irish monk proved to be an unlikely champion of the geeky A2K notion of access to knowledge. [...] and they settled things the way they did in those days, with 3000 people getting killed in the resulting battle.

The full article about Saint ColmCille and his fight for free access to knowledge and Copyleft is available here (PDF).

(and after all, if those lawyers working for the music industry are serious about that copyright shit, why don't they join the army and fight that battle on the front line, huh ? Hand me a banana bomb, there's a cluster of them coming our way...)

Re:Get in line...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, U2 isn't an option - they've already moved their publishing business to the Netherlands, after the Irish government capped the tax exemption on artists at a mere €250,000.

Re:The Irish, being a compliant group...

[Doc Ruby]

Why not? The Irish capitulated to its private banks without a fight, agreeing to pay all those (largely foreign, largely British) bankers' stupid debts with their taxes for the rest of their lives, sending the Irish people back into the depths of the world's poorest.

Why wouldn't a new rapist like the "music" business see Ireland's government waving its tattered ass and jump to take its turn? There's still something left to steal, so no time to waste.