Record Labels Fail In Attempt To Force Three Strikes On Ireland

from the struck-out dept

Mon, Oct 11th 2010 2:14pm — Mike Masnick

Ireland has been sort of a testbed for the recording industry's attempt to force ISPs to implement a three strikes law, despite a lack of legislation making it mandatory. Back in 2008, a bunch of labels sued Eircom, the largest Irish ISP for not magically stopping file sharing. While Eircom fought it for a bit, it finally "settled" by agreeing to implement a three strikes policy. Then things got a little strange. After Eircom agreed, the record labels sent notices to other Irish ISPs insisting that they, too, were obligated to put in place three strikes rules, because Eircom had done so. At that point, it was rumored that part of the Eircom settlement was that the labels would try to force other ISPs to also implement three strikes and, in exchange, Eircom would not publicly argue against any attempts by the labels to get three strikes into Irish law.

Thankfully, the other ISPs recognized they were under no such legal obligation, and fought back. Earlier this year, a judge ruled that Eircom's decision to implement three strikes did not violate privacy laws, but today the Irish High Court ruled in favor of one of the Irish ISPs, UPC, in saying that it had no legal obligation to implement three strikes. Unfortunately, the judge did trot out debunked claims that file sharing was some how destroying the industry, even as more and more evidence has shown the exact opposite. Still, it's nice to see that the labels are unable to force such rules on ISPs, especially outside of the legislative process.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: ireland, three strikes
Companies: eircom, upc

8 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 11 Oct 2010 @ 2:29pm

Introducing Next Generation Broadband from Eircom and The Record Industry
Eircom has "Unconjested Fiber-Powered Broadband that will transform our internet experience" in a recent advert.

Who knew it was "Unconjested" because they sue their customers into oblivion?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi_wWkckCg8
[ link to this | view in thread ]
abc gum, 11 Oct 2010 @ 4:38pm

I would expect the number of Eircom subscribers to decrease as a result.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
T.J., 11 Oct 2010 @ 4:51pm

Eircom also censored pirate bay at the same time which is a worse crime but seems to have gotten very little press.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 11 Oct 2010 @ 7:53pm

""even as more and more evidence has shown the exact opposite""> they have evidence to support their side too, you choose to only accept what you want that supports your belief
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 11 Oct 2010 @ 8:29pm

Re:
They do? Too bad they never provide any.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike Masnick (profile), 11 Oct 2010 @ 10:00pm

Re:
they have evidence to support their side too, you choose to only accept what you want that supports your belief

Hmm. Where is that evidence? The evidence I'm using comes from the recording industry's own data...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2010 @ 7:26am

That Judge can read.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Hephaestus (profile), 13 Oct 2010 @ 7:35am

Re: Re:
"Hmm. Where is that evidence? The evidence I'm using comes from the recording industry's own data..."

Which data? The data that was created by the labels to show politicians how bad "piracy" is for the labels? Or the reports that shows the exact opposite?
[ link to this | view in thread ]