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Three-strikes back in the Irish commercial courts

By | Published on Thursday 15 January 2015

Warning Letter

So, is this Irish labels v UPC thing still ongoing? Yes, yes it is.

Let’s recap. In Ireland the major record companies reached a legal settlement with the country’s biggest internet service provider Eircom that saw the net firm voluntarily enact a three-strikes system, sending warning letters to suspected file-sharers amongst their user-base that threaten sanctions if the customer doesn’t stop with their naught copyright infringing.

As part of that deal the majors agreed to endeavour to persuade or force the country’s other net providers to do likewise, resulting in years of legal wrangling in which the legality of even the Eircom scheme was questioned. In the end it was deemed that Eircom could legally send out its warning letters, but its biggest rival UPC couldn’t be forced to do the same.

But then, following some political manoeuvres in Dublin, the labels launched new legal action against UPC last year, again seeking an injunction to force the ISP to launch an anti-piracy scheme similar to that run by Eircom. And that litigation was back in court earlier this week.

The labels say that its monitoring of file-sharing on UPC’s network shows that piracy is still rife, and that the ISP should be obliged to do something about it. Interestingly, according to the Irish Times, the record industry’s lawyers argue that even though web-blocking has also begun in Ireland – The Pirate Bay is blocked, for example – a three-strikes style warning letter system is still needed because the blocks can be easily circumvented. Which they can, though the labels are less keen to talk about that when advocating more web blockades.

UPC – which has long objected to taking on any anti-piracy role – continues to argue that it would be inappropriate for it to instigate a three-strikes system, because the balancing of copyright owner and user rights that would be required should be handled by government not individual ISPs. Presumably it’s not that keen on paying to run a three-strikes scheme either. The net firm’s bosses say that the labels should get injunctions to force them to reveal the identity of suspected file-sharers, and then they can send their own letters.

Legal reps from both sides have been providing these arguments to judge Brian Cregan this week, and will likely continue to do so into next week too. It remains to be seen if the labels get their way this time.



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