American firm to crack down on Irish music downloads

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AN anti-piracy firm in America has been hired to gather evidence against Irish users of online music-sharing networks so they can be prosecuted.

Dick Doyle, the director general of the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) that hired the firm, said he already has evidence against some of the estimated 250,000 Irish users of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and eDonkey.

Those caught in possession of illegally downloaded music can be fined ¤1,900 per song or face total fines of up to ¤127,000 and five years’ imprisonment.

IRMA’s recruitment of American expertise is the latest development in a continuing battle between record labels protecting their copyrights and online peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks.

“We have specialists on P2P sites watching what’s going on,” said Doyle. “We’re not only issuing warnings to people but also gathering information about the behaviour of certain individuals. This stuff could be used in litigation in a couple of months’ time.”

Internet service providers (ISPs), which could be required to identify individual customers through court orders, have voiced concernsmore

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