Crackdown on File-sharing.
| A Danish Antipiracy
group identified 150 alleged pirates asking them to pay a combined 1.0 million
Danish Crowns ($133,600), said Morten Lindegaard, an attorney for the group.
The biggest offenders face a bill of 100,000 Crowns ($13,360). “We are demanding full payment for the use of these copyrighted materials,” Lindegaard said. The APG has worked with the Danish branch of music trade body International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, to crack down on online piracy. The decision to seek compensation for downloads opens up a controversial new front in copyright holders’ ongoing campaign to curb consumer piracy on the Internet, a phenomenon blamed for a decline in CD sales and upswing in the free trade of video games, computer software and video games. The tactic is drawing protests from some technical and legal experts who insist that without the violators’ computer it’s impossible to prove the existence of copyright violations. Others question the size of the bills. “In this case, we’re talking about compensation for the damage the Anti Piracy Group claims its members have suffered. It’s the courts that decide the amount of compensation to be paid due to copyright infringement, not the victim.” said Martin von Haller Groenbaek, a Danish attorney specializing in IT law. KAZAA, EDONKEY USERS TARGETED In each case, the Danish users were accused of downloading copyrighted materials from file-sharing networks Kazaa and eDonkey, two popular so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) networks in Denmark, Lindegaard said. Lindegaard, 29, and his helpers — four Danish university students — developed a software program that monitored Danish file swappers on the two P2P networks, honing down to the users’ Internet Protocol, or IP, address to confirm they were logged on from Denmark. The program also traced the files shared and the time at which they were downloaded. After reviewing the evidence, a judge ordered the users’ Internet service providers to pass on the violators’ billing addresses. In each case, the alleged pirate first learned they were being investigated when they received a bill in the post, which began arriving late last week. A spokesman for the Danish Consumer Council said they received roughly 50 complaints from the fined individuals. After an initial investigation, the council determined the APG complied with local data protection laws, the spokesman added. STUDENTS, PROFESSIONALS FINGERED Lindegaard said the accused range from high school students to professionals. They downloaded materials ranging from Eminem songs to the latest Star Wars film to the video game, “Grand Theft Auto.” “The top 10 computer games, music and movies — it’s all there,” said Lindegaard. The alleged pirates were billed based on the amount of files they shared. For a single music file, they were charged 20 Crowns ($2.67); 200 Crowns ($26.70) for a movie and approximately $50 for a video game, Lindegaard said. But technical experts threw into question the fairness of the bill, pointing to the fact that copyrighted material from time to time is distributed for free across the Internet in a legitimate manner. For example, major record labels allow users to download select songs from new album releases off the Web. The tracks typically expire after a period, but in some cases the deactivated track may still appear on a users’ hard drive. Also, the labels, movie studios and video game makers have increasingly distributed bogus files on P2P networks that resemble the genuine article, down to file size and title, to frustrate would-be downloaders. “How do you know each of these copyrighted materials is illegal? That’s the big issue here,” said Urs Gattiker, a professor of technology and innovation management at Aalborg University in Denmark. © 2002 Reuters Limited. |