BPI get their "man" - all 23 of them!

[Bob]

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has today announced it has successfully obtained compensation from P2P users who illegally distributed music. The 23 illegal filesharers (named on the BPI site) who have settled, range in age from 22 to 58 and include people from every walk of life – from a student to the director of an IT company to a local councillor. The number of files they were distributing over the internet ranged from hundreds to many thousands.

"UK record companies’ trade association the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) today announced that 23 UK internet users have agreed to pay thousands of pounds in compensation for distributing music illegally via peer-to-peer networks on the internet.

The BPI said it will also bring 31 new cases against filesharers from across the UK as it steps up its campaign against illegal filesharing. And in a broadening of the campaign the new actions will span eight different filesharing networks. Further cases will follow."

The BPI (http://www.bpi.co.uk/news/legal/news_content_file_901.shtml)

[stickuto]

I heard they were sharing around 9,000 songs! And they have agreed to pay £50,000 in compensation, now thats alot of money!

[se3_uk]

I posted a similar thing in the main music thread. Those who have settled paid up to £4,500 each but the average is £2,000. They were sharing anything from hundreds of files to 9,000.

Three cases are still to settle and today they announced they are going after 31 more people.

Full story here (http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=11003&Page=1&pagePos=2), here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/04/udload.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/03/04/ixportaltop.html) or here (http://www.netimperative.com/2005/03/04/Filesharers_compensation/view)

[stickuto]

HAHAHA i thought it was £50,000 each, thought that was alot!

Are they only after file sharers then, what about someone who downloads 9,000 songs but doesn't actually share them?

I can see why they are after people who shares alot of music, but surely they would go after some people who just download, but download tons of music,

[bighusker]

I doubt they'd bother to go after people who only download songs. For one, it'd be damn near impossible to track. They would have to put up copies of the songs themselves and let people download from them and then log their IPs. Then, they'd have to go through all the hassle of identifying the person and trying to sue them...for what?? downloading a single .99 cent song? I don't think they'd be able to sue for a lot of money...they'd spend much more trying to identify them.