The music industry's case against the internet service providers in the file sharing domain could be about to go legal in Ireland.
As much previously reported, the record labels and music publishers are increasingly pissed off about the ISPs' refusal to take a more proactive role in stopping illegal file sharing via P2P networks. They want the ISPs to monitor their customers' online activity, and to warn and ultimately cut off those customers who use their internet connection to distribute or acquire unlicensed music content.
The ISPs generally don't want to do this - officially because of privacy rule concerns, but also because of the cost of introducing the kind of technology required to do such monitoring, and a cynicism towards the effectiveness of such technology. That unwillingness to act has led to the music companies to lobby political types about the issue, and in the UK, France and Australia senior ministers have indicated they will introduce new laws forcing ISPs to act if they don't do so voluntarily in the next year.
But in Ireland the record labels may take the matter into their own hands and try to force the ISPs to act through the courts. The Irish Times have reported that the Irish Recorded Music Association is planning on taking its grievances against the country's largest ISP, Eircom, to the High Court in Dublin. Billboard quote a representative of the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry as confirming that the trade body will take the dispute to court, adding that no date has been set for any court fight but it could be as soon as May.
The new litigation follows a successful court bid by IRMA last year to force Eircom to reveal the identity of five individuals accused of file sharing. Similar lawsuits to find out the identity of suspected file sharers have been successful in other jurisdictions, though a legal battle to force the ISPs to be more proactive day to day on illegal file sharing has less precedent to follow, other than the indications of intent from those politicians in the aforementioned three countries.