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U.K. Courts Rule File-Sharing is Illegal, Impose Stiff Fines on Individuals

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 27, 2006 - 8:13am.
London - A landmark duo of court rulings in the U.K. has for the first time found music file-swappers guilty of copyright infringement and ordered defendants to pay damages to the U.K. music industry. In the first case, the U.K. High Court granted summary judgment against a man from King's Lynn accused of file-sharing copyright infringement, ordering him immediately to pay nearly $8,900 to the British Phonographic Institute (BPI), a U.K. record label trade group. The man must also pay legal fees totaling nearly $24,000 and as yet unspecified damages. Another man from Brighton was also found guilty by summary judgment and ordered to pay over $2,600 immediately to the BPI, with additional damages likely to follow. "The courts have spoken and their verdict is unequivocal: unauthorized file-sharing is against the law," said BPI executive chairman Peter Jamieson. The BPI added that it has settled the majority of the 139 lawsuits it filed against individual file-swappers since October 2004, with some paying up to $11,500 to avoid a court case; the group is currently seeking settlements in 51 other cases launched last December.
tags: Law | File-Sharing | U.K | Illegal | Impose | Individuals |