Following investigations carried out by the IFPI, police carried out several raids across Sweden yesterday, targeting individuals sharing thousands of music tracks via Direct Connect. The alleged operator of the hub was arrested while others admitted to copyright infringement offenses.
In 2008, Baidu was sued for around $9 million by Sony BMG, Universal Music and Warner Music for providing so-called “deep-links” to copyright music tracks. A court has now ruled that providing search results does not breach copyright law, clearing China’s biggest search engine of wrong-doing.
Once again the music industry has come out with disappointing results for physical music sales, which they blame entirely on file-sharing. What they failed to mention though, is that their findings show that music pirates are buying more digital music than the average music consumer. Since digital music is the future, pirates are the industry’s most valuable customers.
Alan Ellis, the ex-admin of the OiNK BitTorrent tracker, was cleared of Conspiracy to Defraud by jury of his peers last week. But now it seems that as one battle ends, another begins. IFPI says it is considering civil action, and is committed to reclaiming the money donated to the site in order to give it back to the artists.
After more than six years of loyal service, at the end of this month IFPI Denmark will lose their director and spokesman, Jesper Bay. The anti-piracy veteran says that after many copyright battles, it’s time to move on to other ventures. He insists, however, he hasn’t had a better offer of employment from the pirates.
IFPI Sweden are celebrating after new statistics reveal that in 2009, music sales were up for the first time in nearly a decade. Digital sales have increased rapidly, with revenues from streaming services such as Spotify increasing impressively. Even physical CD sales showed a modest increase over the previous year.
In what is being touted as a first-of-its-kind case, an 18 year-old Swiss woman has been hit with a fine and a two year suspended jail sentence after being caught file-sharing thousands of songs and hundreds of movies by music group, IFPI. Failure to pay her fine will lead to 30 days in jail.
After taking legal action, IFPI has now reached a settlement with the operators of several cyberlocker hosting sites. Under the agreement, the owners of the sites will pay IFPI around $50,000 in compensation. They will also hand over their domain names to the music industry group so they cannot be used for infringement in future.
Acting on a music industry tipoff, Swedish police conducted a raid yesterday which led to the arrest of a man on suspicion of copyright infringement. The 25 year-old is said to have made 12,000 tracks available on the Internet. After questioning the man admitted the charge and was later released.
In early November, the IFPI backed by several movie studios lost its case to force ISP Telenor to block The Pirate Bay. Unsatisfied with this decision, the copyright holders are insisting that since the ISP is contributing to piracy, the court has ruled incorrectly. They will now take their case to the High Court.
