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Music industry expands piracy lawsuits to Asia
The music industry has launched its first lawsuits in Asia against illicit file-sharers as it broadens the crackdown on Internet piracy, which it blames for lost sales.
The music industry has launched its first lawsuits in Asia against illicit file-sharers as it broadens the crackdown on Internet piracy, which it blames for lost sales.
The London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said on Tuesday it has filed 963 lawsuits in countries including Japan, the Netherlands, Finland, Ireland and Iceland, bringing the total number of legal actions to more than 11,000 worldwide.
In Japan, the world's second-largest music market, music sales have fallen by nearly a third over the last five years.
Pirated music in the form of knockoff CDs is widespread throughout much of Asia, while online music piracy is also thought to be rife in South Korea and Taiwan.
"The industry has decided this is the time to act," said IFPI Chairman and Chief Executive John Kennedy. "The Japanese are law-abiding citizens and it may be this delivers the short, sharp jolt that we need there."
Kennedy said that lawsuits are likely to continue "for the foreseeable future," despite the music industry's attempts to create legal online alternatives like Napster and iTunes, and to aggressively pursue those who upload music to the Internet.
The industry is also opening another front, imploring Internet service providers to be more proactive about stopping people from illicitly sharing music on their networks.
Kennedy gave a speech to European telecommunications operators in March in which he urged the ISPs to adopt a voluntary code of conduct on copyright infringement.
"These organisations have invested large sums of money in their pipes and communications systems, none of these are any good without content ... and content and music doesn't come for free," he told Reuters. "Sometimes big business will do something socially responsible even if it's a corporate disadvantage."
Separately, the British Phonographic Industry trade association said it had secured jail terms against five people in the UK who were making counterfeit CDs and selling them at a car boot sale.
And the Recording Industry Association of America said it would file lawsuits on Wednesday against 405 students at 18 US colleges who were using university high-speed computer networks to trade nearly a million pirated songs.
