Four Irish record companies sue Eircom over illegal music downloads

Four major record companies have brought a High Court action aimed at compelling Eircom to take measures to prevent its networks being used for the illegal downloading of music.

The case is the first in Ireland aimed at internet service providers, rather than individual illegal downloaders.

This is insanity of the highest degree. Eircom’s lawyers said:

the company was not on notice of specific illegal activity that infringed the rights of the companies and had no legal obligation to monitor traffic on its network.

And if they ever do have that obligation, then we’re even more fucked than ever. Don’t forget the government is already trying to stick data retention down our necks, something ISPs are completely befuddled about too, and has even garnered the attention of Google who believe it’ll damage our own internet industry. The idea that ISPs should have to bend to the will of a bunch of record companies is even more hilarious.

Case in point, the growing irrelevance of record labels: Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead Dominate Amazon MP3 Chart.

Full story @ Ireland.com.

Update: The awesome Justin Mason of taint.org has a huge post on the issue.

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