UPC won there Court case with IRMA

Falconire

Mod edit to add important information. Please read this and understand what it means.

There is no invasion of privacy in anything that eircom are doing with IRMA, or what IRMA wanted UPC to do. IRMA employ 3rd parties to monitor files that are shared on P2P networks (and possibly other networks). When you try to download that file, your IP can be seen, by anyone, and this IP is then passed on to your ISP (eircom currently the only ISP co-operating), together with the detail of what you are downloading. The ISP then contacts you to inform you that you've been caught. No private information is shared illegally, no invasion of privacy happens, no monitoring of you or your Internet connection or activity happens.

There is no legal requirement for eircom to do what they are doing, they simply agreed with IRMA. UPC denied the request, and because of the lack of legal requirements, IRMA were unable to get the High Court to force UPC to comply. The end users will not be brought to court because of any of this action, but they do run the risk of having their Internet connection terminated by their ISP.

I hope this clarifies the situation, and stops the nonsensical and hysterical posts about privacy infringements and data protection issues. Posting such inaccurate information will result in further actions from now on.

The below is Falconire's original posting.


Upc had won there high court case with Imra

FloatingVoter

Falconire wrote: »

UPC have won their high court case with Imra

Fixt.:D

This is the kind of news of I need every Monday morning.

thefishone

Falconire wrote: »

Upc had won there high court case with Imra

Have you a link?

M.J.M.C

thefishone wrote: »

Have you a link?

http://www.teic.ie/2010/10/irma-loses-in-bid-to-force-three-strikes-on-upc/

quicksliver

Excellent news. Pity Eircom is the only provider in my area with decent speeds...

danniemcq

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/record-companies-fail-in-bid-to-force-upc-to-block-illegal-downloading-477226.html

11/10/2010 - 12:10:24
Several record company giants have failed in their High Court bid to force UPC to block illegal internet downloading.

The court said that Ireland does not have the necessary laws in place to block, divert and interrupt internet piracy.

Eircom last year settled a deal with four record companies to cut off its broadband subscribers if they are caught sharing certain copyrighted music online.

In this case, EMI, Sony, Universal, Warner and WEA international went to court to force UPC to do likewise.

In his judgement, Mr Justice Peter Charleton said he was satisfied that their business was being devastated by illegal downloading.

Despite those views, he said that the Court could not grant injunctive relief, saying Ireland does not have the laws in place to block internet copyright theft.

"It is not surprising that the legislative response laid down in our country in the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, at a time when this problem was not perceived to be as threatening to the creative and retail economy as it has become in 2010, has made no proper provision for the blocking, diverting or interrupting of internet communications intent on breaching copyright," stated the judgement.

"In failing to provide legislative provisions for blocking, diverting and interrupting internet copyright theft, Ireland is not yet fully in compliance with its obligations under European law.

"Instead, the only relevant power that the courts are given is to require an internet hosting service to remove copyright material. Respecting, as it does, the doctrine of separation of powers and the rule of law, the Court cannot move to grant injunctive relief to the recording companies against internet piracy, even though that relief is merited on the facts.

"The Court thus declines injunctive relief."

fergusb

I wonder if Eircom can use this to stop the 3 strikes rule? Or because it was settle out of court does it have to maintain its agreement and continue to pass on file sharer details?

Is a great win for UPC anyway.

BrianD

So UPC didn't win but IRMA failed to obtain an injunction.

Just shows you that criminals (as in the downloaders) also seem to get away with it. A bad day for anybody who is trying to make a living from music in this country. There's a light touch on crime in this country on every level.

Got a copy of the IRMA press release in my inbox, here it is ...

EMI, Universal Sony, Warner Music Versus UPC in the High Court

11th October 2010

Speaking after the Judgement today in the High Court in the case of EMI, Universal, Sony, Warner versus UPC, Mr Willie Kavanagh, Chairman of IRMA said “We are extremely disappointed that the High Court today has effectively determined that the Irish State has failed to protect the constitutional rights of copyright holders , by failing to implement EU Copyright directives correctly”.

Dick Doyle, Director General of IRMA added “The High Court has acknowledged that Irish artists, composers and recording companies are sustaining huge losses and internet providers are profiting from the wholesale theft of music.

The Judge made it very clear that an injunction would be morally justified but that the Irish legislature had failed in its obligation to confer on the courts the right to grant such injunctions unlike other EU states.

We will now look to the Irish Government to fully vindicate the constitutional rights of Copyright holders and we reserve the right to seek compensation for the past and continuing losses from the State”.

jimmycrackcorm

fergusb wrote: »

I wonder if Eircom can use this to stop the 3 strikes rule? Or because it was settle out of court does it have to maintain its agreement and continue to pass on file sharer details?

Is a great win for UPC anyway.

Waiting for such a question. Eircom got cornered into the agreement because one of their executives sent an internal email stating that P2P piracy was actually a benefit in broadband take up. IRMA somehow got hold of this and that made eircom appear culpable in promoting music piracy. That is why they were forced to agree to IRMA's demands instead of trying a test case as UPC did.

Amalgam

Will this not just lead to some shoddy and quickly cobbled together Government sanctioned HADOPI (France) style legislation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HADOPI_law

jimmycrackcorm

BrianD wrote: »

Just shows you that criminals (as in the downloaders) also seem to get away with it. .

So us uploaders are ok then

The problem is that IRMA and the music industry are still trying to hold on to their rip-off pricing model instead of moving with the times. Piracy would diminish greatly if there was a fairer model - for both the industry and the consumer. I'm thinking Grooveshark VIP for example.

Johnboy1951

Looks like the judge was totally on the side of Big Media in this, but was constrained by lack of legislation to enforce his views.

It does not look good at all for the future ....

evercloserunion

The worrying thing about this case is that it will probably provoke some ridiculously draconian and ill-thought out legislation to "deal" with the issue a la headshops.

kippy

evercloserunion wrote: »

The worrying thing about this case is that it will probably provoke some ridiculously draconian and ill-thought out legislation to "deal" with the issue a la headshops.

I have major issues with head shops and have no problems with whatever draconian measures are used to shut them down but that is another thread.
However, it does look like the record industry will lobby the government for leglislation to cover such areas in the future. Its fairly obvious that the judge would have hammered UPC had the leglislation existed and it is only a matter of time before it does exist.

To be fair, there are issues with downloading copyrighted material and these issues need to be addressed. "Proper" bands cannot make a living any more and new bands are finding it harder and harder to break through.
However the record industry need to look at solutions as well, reducing CD/Download costs as well as ticket prices for gigs might be a start.

28064212

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

The problem is that IRMA and the music industry are still trying to hold on to their rip-off pricing model instead of moving with the times. Piracy would diminish greatly if there was a fairer model - for both the industry and the consumer. I'm thinking Grooveshark VIP for example.

+1

The music industry's approach since Napster came on to the scene has always been all stick, no carrot. I pay a yearly subscription to a file-sharing site and get all the downloads I want, in the quality I want, with the options I want. I don't particularly want to do this, it is illegal after all, but where's the industry's counter-offer? I'd be more than willing to pay a premium for an offically-sanctioned equivalent service. Even the best of the 'official' offerings, the iTunes store, is out-dated, not very user friendly, expensive, and doesn't offer great options.

The TV providers are at least starting to move with the times, with streaming and on-demand offerings (although there's still no reasonable alternatives to DVDs), but the music industry is stuck in the mud and can't seem to realise they have to move on

Amalgam

The Record Industry will try their best to stick their collective heads further in the sand.. Remember when Chart CDs were headed towards £20 each before all this annoying internet lark?

For old technology (Compact Disc), the price has never come down..

calex71

Back in 2000 as they said they did nothing about it and now look where they are 10 years on, they are faced with a whole generation who have grown up not paying for music etc. Old habits are hard to break. Sure now even my mum who can't even use a computer knows that "it's free on the internet" :eek:

seamus

Any kind of mainstream illegal downloading is coming to an end. Its days are numbered, there's no doubt about it.

It will always be there - just like bootlegs and copies always have been - but your average joe on the street will find it more difficult to download anything illegally without exposing himself and so will go for the legit operations.

I imagine that the vast majority of music consumers are not involved in music downloading anyway. There is a segment of people in the 16-25 age group who have both the technical skills and personal righteousness to download music illegally, but the vast majority of people simply don't know how to. They will Google for "download Justin Bieber songs" and they'll see a link to iTunes. Then they pay for convenience. The Napster and Bearshare days are gone, it's no longer a matter of installing a client, searching for your favourite bands and clicking "download".

Just like when cassettes became mainstream, the music industry has vastly overestimated the impact of illegal music downloads on music sales. Sure, it makes it *easier* to get your hands on music for free, but it doesn't make it any more likely for people to do it.

Yes, music sales have been sliding for a long time, but study after study has found no significant causal link between illegal downloads and falling sales.

If anything the recording industry themselves are to blame for making it difficult for new bands to breakthrough into the mainstream and for existing bands to make good money by relying on forumlaic music and guaranteed money-spinners.

FloatingVoter

If you want to support the band / artist in question, buy the music. No one is forcing people to illegally download stuff.
You cannot legislate successfully against an "everything is free" mindset no more than you can legislate successfully against drunk driving - someone somewhere will be doing it. Changing peoples opinions and habits is a far harder task than signing off on some ill-thought out law that pleases nobody but a few record company mouthpieces.

BrianD

FloatingVoter wrote: »

If you want to support the band / artist in question, buy the music. No one is forcing people to illegally download stuff.
You cannot legislate successfully against an "everything is free" mindset no more than you can legislate successfully against drunk driving - someone somewhere will be doing it. Changing peoples opinions and habits is a far harder task than signing off on some ill-thought out law that pleases nobody but a few record company mouthpieces.

Well quite clearly the drink driving culture has changed through legislation. There has been a complete attitude shift over the past years.

The there is a culture of "everything is free" on the Internet which doesn't just affect the music business but newspapers and other content providers. It will take time to change that mindset and won't happen overnight. It wwill be both a carrot and stick.

Bottomline that stealing music doesn't just dent the pockets of "those evil record companies" but also removes the ability of the musicians to make a living.

jay-me

seamus wrote: »

Any kind of mainstream illegal downloading is coming to an end. Its days are numbered, there's no doubt about it.

It will always be there - just like bootlegs and copies always have been - but your average joe on the street will find it more difficult to download anything illegally without exposing himself and so will go for the legit operations.

I imagine that the vast majority of music consumers are not involved in music downloading anyway. There is a segment of people in the 16-25 age group who have both the technical skills and personal righteousness to download music illegally, but the vast majority of people simply don't know how to. They will Google for "download Justin Bieber songs" and they'll see a link to iTunes. Then they pay for convenience. The Napster and Bearshare days are gone, it's no longer a matter of installing a client, searching for your favourite bands and clicking "download".

Just like when cassettes became mainstream, the music industry has vastly overestimated the impact of illegal music downloads on music sales. Sure, it makes it *easier* to get your hands on music for free, but it doesn't make it any more likely for people to do it.

Yes, music sales have been sliding for a long time, but study after study has found no significant causal link between illegal downloads and falling sales.

If anything the recording industry themselves are to blame for making it difficult for new bands to breakthrough into the mainstream and for existing bands to make good money by relying on forumlaic music and guaranteed money-spinners.

Are you for real????

seamus

jay-me wrote: »

Are you for real????

I am. Almost every study has found that illegal downloads have very little effect on actual music sales and in many cases, particularly for musicians not in the top-30 mainstream, illegal downloads can result in increased music sales.

Yes, CD sales have been declining rapidly. But I have yet to see a single independent study to agree that it's the fault of illegal downloads.

For the record, I haven't downloaded stuff illegally in a good few years at this point and a lot of the stuff I did download was only singles or partial albums - I have since gone back and paid for the full album download in many cases or deleted anything which was crap.

I don't condone music downloads as a means of increasing one's library, but I see no problem with getting a song or two if it's needed or just to listen to it. It's not been proven to have any effect on the starving artists, so why fuss?

As I say though, its days are still numbered for the common man. Both through the ubiqituousness of the likes of iTunes and through the legislative effect on the torrent hosting sites.

evercloserunion

FloatingVoter wrote: »

If you want to support the band / artist in question, buy the music. No one is forcing people to illegally download stuff.
You cannot legislate successfully against an "everything is free" mindset no more than you can legislate successfully against drunk driving - someone somewhere will be doing it. Changing peoples opinions and habits is a far harder task than signing off on some ill-thought out law that pleases nobody but a few record company mouthpieces.

Bad example. Legislation against drunk driving has been quite successful I'd say. Sure, drunk driving incidents still happen, but the existence of the law does provide an effective incentive against it. The problem is that laws on online piracy don't do that. Trying to seek out individuals and enforce your IP rights on them minimises the chance that any one person will actually be caught, and attempts to catch more violaters tend to end up catching/punishing innocent third parties (like the 3 strikes rule punishing all members of a househild where one member has been downloading illegaly).

jay-me

Sorry i meant are you for real about the majority of people not knowing how to download music etc. You can get all the info you need form a simple google search with video's to show you step by step. And all it takes is one kid in a thousand to learn about torrents etc and suddenly you have the whole school at it.

z0oT

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1011/breaking32.html

Irish Recorded Music Association director-general Dick Doyle said his office would pressure the Government to reform the law in favour of record labels.

Sadly this will probably pave the way to some version of the UK's Digital Economy Act or France's Hadopi law. :rolleyes:

seamus wrote: »

I am. Almost every study has found that illegal downloads have very little effect on actual music sales and in many cases, particularly for musicians not in the top-30 mainstream, illegal downloads can result in increased music sales.

Yes, CD sales have been declining rapidly. But I have yet to see a single independent study to agree that it's the fault of illegal downloads.

The ironic thing however is that the Labels seem to be of the opinion that if they somehow magically erradicate illegal downloads entirely, then their profits will climb back up to the record levels they once were.

FloatingVoter

evercloserunion wrote: »

Bad example. Legislation against drunk driving has been quite successful I'd say. Sure, drunk driving incidents still happen, but the existence of the law does provide an effective incentive against it. The problem is that laws on online piracy don't do that. Trying to seek out individuals and enforce your IP rights on them minimises the chance that any one person will actually be caught, and attempts to catch more violaters tend to end up catching/punishing innocent third parties (like the 3 strikes rule punishing all members of a househild where one member has been downloading illegaly).

It was a bad example, agreed. People get killed on the roads, nobody dies due to illegal downloading. Legislation against cannabis use might be a better e.g. to use. Hand on heart, how many of us here pay a blind bit of heed to that when offered a joint at a party. Thats my point, it is a mindset and you can't change that with a stroke of a pen on some legislation.

evercloserunion

seamus wrote: »

I am. Almost every study has found that illegal downloads have very little effect on actual music sales and in many cases, particularly for musicians not in the top-30 mainstream, illegal downloads can result in increased music sales.

Yes, CD sales have been declining rapidly. But I have yet to see a single independent study to agree that it's the fault of illegal downloads.

For the record, I haven't downloaded stuff illegally in a good few years at this point and a lot of the stuff I did download was only singles or partial albums - I have since gone back and paid for the full album download in many cases or deleted anything which was crap.

I don't condone music downloads as a means of increasing one's library, but I see no problem with getting a song or two if it's needed or just to listen to it. It's not been proven to have any effect on the starving artists, so why fuss?

As I say though, its days are still numbered for the common man. Both through the ubiqituousness of the likes of iTunes and through the legislative effect on the torrent hosting sites.

Can you link to any of these studies? That would be quite interesting to see. Certainly I know that a lot of music that is downloaded by people is music that they are only acquiring because it's free and easy to obtain, ie if they could not download it for free, they would not buy it, so the music company hasn't actually lost out on a sale. And I myself have gone out and bought several of an artist's CDs after sampling a few songs on the internet.

But at the same time, I find it hard to believe that they don't lose a lot of sales to people who would be wililng to go out and buy a CD, but choose to download it instead.

kippy

jay-me wrote: »

Sorry i meant are you for real about the majority of people not knowing how to download music etc. You can get all the info you need form a simple google search with video's to show you step by step. And all it takes is one kid in a thousand to learn about torrents etc and suddenly you have the whole school at it.

I'd agree with Seamus actually..........despite initially (in my head) thinking he was wrong.

1.Not everyone has the skills to use google to search for a youtube clip containing all the steps required to download illegal content.
2. Some of those that have may not find it works for them anyway (for whatever reason).
3. We mix in very techie circles on this board. Not everyone has these skills that some of us take for granted.

Thinking about it, I dont know of anyone outside of my techie friends who has the skills required to get music illegally even if they wanted to.
Most, as Seamus has rightly pointed out are using Itunes or some other such subscription service.

Those that perhaps are downloading now, may be put off by whatever leglislation comes in and may be scared off by the record companies into standard legal download methods.

BoB_BoT

jay-me wrote: »

Sorry i meant are you for real about the majority of people not knowing how to download music etc. You can get all the info you need form a simple google search with video's to show you step by step. And all it takes is one kid in a thousand to learn about torrents etc and suddenly you have the whole school at it.

I deal with the "average" computer user quite a bit. A select few know how to use torrents, the majority who do download music use limewire and bearshare or similar. The average computer user is generally back into me every few weeks/months with virus or spyware on their computer. Not exactly "free" music when I charge them to clean their pcs.

The majority couldn't be bothered watching an instructional video on how to download music, how to use programs, how to spot the dodgy file. They only want it quick and without major effort.

If the policy of blocking infected computers from online access comes about, then yes, I can see a sharp decline in people pirating music.

seamus

jay-me wrote: »

Sorry i meant are you for real about the majority of people not knowing how to download music etc. You can get all the info you need form a simple google search with video's to show you step by step. And all it takes is one kid in a thousand to learn about torrents etc and suddenly you have the whole school at it.

evercloserunion wrote: »

Can you link to any of these studies?

I can remember reading a few of them but didn't have any specific links, so just to check my head before posting I googled, "Effects of downloads on CD Music sales" and clicked on the first few links that came up. I did only scan, so maybe one of those will contradict what I said, but it's still interesting reading.

As Bob_bot says, you cannot overestimate the ability of your average computer user. Sure everyone who's been in college in the last ten years spent their time surfing the web, they're all experts right, totally web-savvy?

Wrong. Most of them know about as much about the web as the average motorist knows about their car. They know how to get from A to B and how to interpret the odd error message, but the inner workings are a complete mystery to them and doing anything out of the ordinary requires a certain level of understanding which the average user just doesn't have, and more critically has no interest in learning.

Torrents aren't easy. OK, well they are easy, with a little understanding, but if you don't know how torrents work; what a magnet link is, what's the difference between a seed and a leech, and how to interpret those numbers beside them, how, where and why to add the music to your iTunes library so you can sync to your iPod, then downloading music is an intensely frustrating and confusing experience.
Or you can spend a fiver and click "download" in iTunes and all the hard, confusing work is done for you.

Your average Joe won't go to the hassle of downloading music illegally for the same reason that he gives his car into a garage to be fixed - because doing it yourself requires your time, understanding and resources, which Joe Bloggs is usually unwilling to part with. Remember the Simpsons; "Can't someone else do it?".

Johnboy1951

First I would like to say that if I download a copyrighted file I have not committed 'theft', contrary to what has been posted above.

With regard to hurting 'artists' ........ the majority have sold/assigned their rights in the copyright to the majority of the material being downloaded, and a recent case in Canada showed quite clearly that it is the fault of the media companies that the 'artists' do not get paid their slice of what is sold. The 'artists' have not been receiving their payments from the companies who collected those payments. -- no I do not have a link, but it was high profile so should be easily found.

When the originators of the works that are copyrighted decide to keep the copyright to themselves then I have no problem at all in making payments to those originators.

'Copyright' as its name implies is a right granted to some members of society who produce some specific categories of works.
That this 'right' is saleable is a corruption of the right.
The whole basis of the media industry is corrupted.

In my 60+ years on this planet I have purchased one commercial music CD for my own use, and never intend to buy another.
I will not contribute to the continued corruption of a right granted to 'artists' to protect their works from copying ..... until that right is brought back to what it was meant to be, and should be. In essence I do expect that to happen in my remaining lifetime, and probably never; so I never expect to purchase another commercial music CD.

So, 'artists', if you want payment from me, distribute your own works, under your own copyright, at some reasonable cost, else stop whinging about big media companies not liking the fact that I and many others refuse to deal with them and their corrupted business model.

Obviously the big media companies will not supply the users the media in the manner they want, and it also seems that it is beyond the comprehension of the 'artists' that they could organise a non profit distribution method for themselves, quite cheaply, to fill that need.

I guess it is easier to whinge and whine about lost revenue than to do something about it .... and supply what the market wants.