Internet service providers are refusing to provide the music industry with the names of customers accused of illegally sharing music on the internet. This is expected to lead to a series of lengthy court battles.
The Irish Recorded Music Association (Irma), which is a trade group representing firms such as Universal and EMI, said this week it wants to sue 17 individuals it accuses of illegally sharing music over the internet. It said it had gathered clear evidence of illegal supply of music tracks by what it calls "serial uploaders".
The industry claims to be losing tens of millions of euro in revenue every year because of illegal downloading of music by file-sharing software and networks such as Kazaa.
But Eircom and BT Ireland confirmed yesterday that this customer data was protected under the Data Protection Act and they would not be giving the names to Irma. "We can't reveal names of customers to them because of data protection laws. But if there is a criminal inquiry, we can deal with gardaí, but only the gardaí," said a BT Ireland spokeswoman.
Irma will now have to seek injunctions from the High Court to compel the service providers to supply the information they need to prosecute. It said it is confident that the courts will force firms to supply the data. However, legal experts warned that there is no such guarantee.
"Internet firms are justified in not voluntarily disclosing such detail. It is then up to the music companies to show in court that they have sufficient evidence that particular individuals have been illegally distributing music files," said solicitor Paul Lambert.