Record biz tries suing Irish ISPs into submission - Ars Technica - The Diigo Meta page

• 28 Jun 09
  

  Alexandre Mateus

  ireland disconnection 2009

• 25 Jun 09
  

  Patrick O'Keefe
  • The Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) has filed lawsuits against two of the country's largest ISPs, seeking to force compliance with an Internet disconnection scheme. It worked well enough earlier this year, when Ireland's largest ISP Eircom settled a similar case with the industry and agreed to implement a graduated response program. After a third accusation of online copyright infringement, Eircom will disconnect a user's Internet connection.
  • But neither BT Ireland nor UPC Ireland sound inclined to settle. A UPC spokesperson told the Irish Times that "there is no basis under Irish law requiring ISPs to control, access or block the internet content its users download" and that the ISP would fight the case in court.
  • 3 more annotations...
  • • The Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI) agrees. In a March statement, the group said, "Irish copyright law provides an avenue for the pursuit of people breaching copyright through the courts... Privacy of user communications is protected in European and Irish legislation. ISPs can not be expected to ignore these merely because it does not suit another private party."
    • If other ISPs refuse to adopt the graduated response plan, Eircom will be at a competitive disadvantage, so it has been pushing the recording industry to go after the other ISPs. Eircom has not begun disconnecting users, saying that the details are still being worked out, but we suspect that the company would prefer to delay disconnections until a few of the country's other major ISPs are ready to do the same thing.
    • But with the European Parliament already on record opposing Internet disconnections and France's Constitutional Council taking a dim view of disconnections that happen without judicial oversight, Irish ISPs will be wary. Sure, signing on to the record industry's plan might make one lawsuit disappear, but it invites a host of other legal challenges from subscribers and consumer groups.
• 24 Jun 09
  

  Jonathan Bailey

  117 bittorrent isps ireland

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