Leak out of Music industry's Irish ISP nasty letter.

Run_to_da_hills

An internet hosting company has published a copy of the nasty-gram Ireland's music industry lawyers bulk-mailed to that country's internet service providers, demanding they begin blocking access to any website accused of piracy or else.

http://blog.blacknight.com/irma-threatens-irish-isps.html

Pines

That's a confused (or more likely, intentionally muddled) letter mixing up two distinct issues, in the hope that they will all wash clean together.

Firstly, there's the agreement by Eircom to implement the "three strikes" policy, and the request/threat that every other ISP do the same.

Secondly there's the issue of whether the ISPs are acting as a mere conduit and if so, whether the courts can grant an injunction forcing them to prevent access to a copyright work.

Section 40(4) is not drafted in terms of blocking access to whole classes of work (e.g. sites hosting popular music including copyright and non-copyright works, or sites containing indexes of where such music can be found), but is drafted in terms of access to an infringing copy of an identified work (a song, a film, a book). The only obligation is to remove "that infringing material" identified by the copyright owner.

Section 40(4) requires the copyright owner to identify an infringing work. A website like Piratebay is not an infringing work of any sort. Eircom agreeing to block access to a site which expressly does not host infringing works is a red herring in the context of this letter. IRMA clearly hope that if and when other ISPs roll over on the "three strikes" policy, the ISPs will also throw up their hands and agree to censor the internet in line with IRMA's instructions.