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Irish minister denies imminent three-strikes rule

By | Published on Friday 25 February 2011

Eircom

Ireland’s Minister For Enterprise, Trade & Innovation, Mary Hanafin, has denied those reports that she and her team have been busy drafting a statutory instrument that would obligate internet service providers there to take action against file-sharers, and that she planned to enact the new rules this week just before the Irish people vote in a general election.

As previously reported, Ireland’s biggest ISP, Eircom, has voluntarily instigated a three-strikes system for dealing with file-sharing after reaching an agreement with the country’s record industry. But attempts to pressure other ISPs to follow suit failed when one net firm, UPC, won a court judgment that confirmed that under current Irish copyright law there was no obligation on net service providers to take action against customers who file-share.

Hanafin’s office confirmed that since that judgment they have been reviewing the situation and that there will be efforts to reform Ireland’s copyright rules in due course, but added there would be much more consultation before any decisions were made and denied categorically that anything would be pushed through in the closing days of the current government.

Hanafin herself told reporters: “There is absolutely no truth in the rumour circulating in the media that I am about to sign a statutory instrument relating to the Copyright & Related Rights Act 2000 and/or the EU Copyright Directive 2001”.



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