Music industry settlement with cyberlockers

Cyberlockers are all the rage in file-sharing these days. File-hosting services like Rapidshare are becoming increasingly popular for sharing copyrighted material.

Providers of such services are usually successful at staying out of legal trouble by remaining ignorant of what users do in their virtual locker and complying with takedown request.

Still, cyberlockers constitute a growing problem for the creative industries. Especially the music industry, whose products are shared on the largest scale, is keeping a close eye on file-hosting servers. One company, the Dishi Group, based in Isreal, caught the eye of the IFPI. Many of their sites provided links to copyrighted material hosted on sites mainly in The Netherlands.

The IFPI took the matter to court and has now settled with the owner of ten sites that are all connected to the Dishi Group. The court issued injunctions that prevent the defendants from “copying, distributing, linking or ripping onto MP3 or other formats any copyright infringing repertoire”, reports Torrentfreak. The Dishi Group was willing to settle and pays the IFPI 50.000 dollar in damages as well as handing over some of the infringing domains.

28-12-2009