Good and bad news for those tackling music piracy in the US yesterday.
Firstly the bad news. The Supreme Court upheld an earlier Appeal Court decision that says current copyright legislation does not give record labels the right to automatically demand that internet service providers hand over the contact information of individuals they suspect of illegally sharing large amounts of copyright material online. Labels who monitor illegal downloading can only identify certain information as to where music being is being shared from - they need the ISPs to figure out the exact identity of the people responsible for the sharing.
The Recording Industry Association of America argues current copyright law in American obligates ISPs to hand over that information on demand, without first going to court. American courts initially backed that claim and for a while ISPs were forced to hand over the contact information of alleged downloaders as a matter of course. However, ISP Verizon appealed against the ruling, and an appeal court overturned the original decision. It was that Appeal Court ruling that the Supreme Court upheld this week. It means that labels will have to continue going to court to obtain the identity of each suspected downloader before they can issue formal proceedings against those individuals.
On the up side, the US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, has unveiled a number of proposals to tackle music and film piracy, one of which would be to change the law so that ISPs would, after all, have to hand over that contact information without any court papers. Other plans in Ashcroft's proposals include the establishment of five anti-piracy offices across the US, plus additional offices in Eastern Europe and Asia. Those offices, especially those outside the US, would focus on stopping the manufacture and sale of illegal copies of CDs and DVDs.
Announcing his proposals Ashcroft told reporters: "We are trying to interrupt a massive haemorrhaging occasioned by significant networks of organised individuals who are stealing billions of copies of copywritten materials on a regular basis."