The BPI is launching court action against Easyjet’s internet café division just to shut them up! They’re upset that the company has been talking publicly about their negotiations with the record labels regarding a £1million claim over music downloads. The record labels claim the internet café chain owes them the money because until a year ago they allowed copyrighted music to be downloaded and burned onto CD in their internet cafes. The Easy group reckon the labels are being a bit greedy in their claim and have been saying so publicly.
The BPI and Sony have said they want to reach an out-of-court settlement on their claim, but that that is only possible if both sides keep ongoing conversations confidential. At the High Court in London Mr Justice Collins said the label’s application for a "gagging" order would get a full hearing next week.
Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou told reporters he was offering £30,000 for a UK settlement, and £50,000 for a global case – but couldn’t agree to the record label’s claims of £100,000 and £380,000 respectively. He went onto say the labels should legalise downloading, and that he’d be willing to buy licences to let music fans download tracks in his cafes. "I think that music downloading should be legalised. It's a far cheaper way than putting CDs into little boxes. You can't stop the consumers doing it [the chain put up signs saying music downloading is not allowed, but admit many will ignore then] so you might as well legalise it. They should take it away from bootleggers and turn it into a legitimate business." He added that the "gagging" order came about because the music industry was embarrassed by its £1m demand becoming public knowledge.