Friday 19 June 2009

Harping on about ISP liability in Ireland

From the IT Law in Ireland weblog of respected Irish scholar TJ McIntyre comes news that, following their inconclusive action against Eircom (see IPKat post here) earlier this year, the music industry is suing internet service providers UPC and BT.

Left: cunningly disguised as an Irish harp, this sophisticated device filters out all downloads so large they can't fit between the strings ...

In the earlier action EMI,SONY BMG, Universal Music and Warner wanted Eircom to install special software to detect the unique “fingerprint” of illegal up/downloaded copyright music files but Eircom refused, saying it was not technically feasible and that it would have interfered with the operation of its network and services.

Says TJ of the current action:
"I believe that litigation demanding that ISPs monitor what their users do and/or disconnect users based on three unproven allegations is unjustified - for the reasons why, see the Digital Rights Ireland site in relation to user monitoring and three strikes".

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