The international music industry today launched another worldwide wave of legal actions against illegal music file-sharers. Almost 2,000 cases have been filed; bringing the total number of non-US cases brought so far to over 5,500 in 18 countries.
Many of those facing legal action are parents of children who have illegally shared thousands of music files on P2P networks. The industry warns parents to check what their children are doing online as they could face financial penalties if their children access illegal material.
According to industry group the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the actions are a combination of criminal and civil suits, and are aimed at 'uploaders' – people who have put hundreds or thousands of copyrighted songs onto internet file-sharing networks and offered them to people worldwide without permission from the copyright owners.
Defendants are likely to face compensation payments averaging several thousand euros, warns the IFPI.
The actions target users of all the major unauthorised P2P networks, including FastTrack (Kazaa), Gnutella (BearShare), eDonkey, DirectConnect, BitTorrent, Limewire, WinMX, and SoulSeek.
They are being launched in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, Iceland, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and, for the first time, in Portugal. According to the IFPI, sales of physical music in Portugal have slumped by 40% in the last four years, mostly because of file-sharing.
Today's move comes after a round of court judgments, from Denmark to the UK, confirming that unauthorised file-sharers are breaking the law and are liable to pay compensation.
In Denmark, a Supreme Court judgment last month, based on the European Copyright Directive, stated that ISPs can be obliged to terminate the connections of customers engaged in internet piracy. That ruling follows more than 130 French injunctions that led to internet users who were illegally file-sharing being disconnected by their ISPs.
In January, a UK court found two British men liable for unlawful file-sharing and ordered them to pay thousands of pounds in damages. According to trade group the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a further two court cases have now been ruled in the BPI's favour, with Judge Justice Richards awarding default judgements against a further two file-sharers last month.
The pair have been ordered to make interim payments of £2,500.
Meanwhile, the latest consumer research, published by IFPI and Jupiter and other independent researchers, suggests that the battle against illegal file-sharing is making progress.
It reveals that more than a third of illegal file-sharers (35%) in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the UK have stopped or cut back on such activity – while 14% increased their activity. That means that a net three million people are cutting back or stopping their illegal file-sharing, says the IFPI.
Of those people who are stopping or cutting back, many cited the legal consequences of their actions as a major worry. This fear was common across most of Europe: France (35%), Germany (27%), Sweden (25%) and the UK (20%).
The other major reason cited by illegal file-sharers for cutting back or stopping their activities was the risk of contracting computer viruses, which was mentioned by 29% of British, 18% of Swedish, 16% of German and 15% of French file-sharers.
