Jazzeast

Legal actions against illegal sharing of music files all over the world have been announced today. This is the result of an intensified campaign of the recording industry to prevent copyright theft and to promote legal use of music online.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), an organisation that represents the welfare of the recording industry worldwide, have announced that their campaign is already extended to Mexico, Poland and Brazil, in addition to Switzerland, Singapore, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Iceland, Hong Kong, Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, Austria and Argentina. More than 8,000 cases of illegal file sharing in 17 nations have been announced, which includes the first cases in Eastern Europe and in South America, two of the largest markets. More than 13,000 legal actions have been taken beyond the U.S. borders.

In Brazil, the biggest market in Latin America, revenues of record companies dropped to US$394.2 million in 2005 from US$724.7 million in 2000. The decrease in revenue is mainly attributed to the significant increase of illegal file sharing in the country. More than a billion of music tracks were unlawfully downloaded in 2005.

AMPROFON, the national affiliate of IFPI in Mexico, will target uploaders and owners of cyber cafés who encourage and support unlawful P2P file sharing.

ZPAV, IFPI’s affiliate in Poland, is working together with police officers who are already starting investigations and raids to collect additional evidence against suspected uploaders.

There are already more than 2,300 people who have paid fines for illegal file sharing of copyrighted material, with an average legal settlement of €2,420.

The industry targets those who upload files using unauthorised peer-to-peer (P2P) services, which include BitTorrent, DirectConnect, eDonkey, Gnutella, SoulSeek, WinMX and Limewire.