Record Labels Take Irish ISPs To Court

By Digital Trends Staff July 7, 2009

Record Labels Take Irish ISPs To Court

Fact is indeed stranger than fiction. You’d scarcely credit that the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA), which represents the major record labels (Sony, Warner Music, EMI, and Universal) could wield so much power.

But, according to The Register, they’re taking BT Communications Ireland and UPC Communications Ireland to court in order to have them accept a three-strikes-you’re-out policy for illegal file sharers.

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They’ve already beaten down the country’s biggest ISP, Eircom, which not only agreed the three strikes policy, but also to block sites the organization doesn’t approve, such as Pirate Bay.

Once IRMA had that victory, it threatened the other two ISPs, which rejected it, saying that while they don’t agree with peer-to-peer file sharing, it’s not the business of ISPs to stop it. And after that has come the court case.

According to the Irish Times, IRMA claims that experts carrying out a scan over a 48-hour period found BT guilty of about 45,000 copyright infringements a month, and UPC with 75,000 a month. In court, IRMA is demanding an injunction stopping the ISPs making copyrighted works available to the public.

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