Here's another European court ruling that may eventually influence entertainment law in the United States (see
last week's post as well).
Britain's High Court has ruled that UK Internet service providers (ISPs) must now block access to Swedish file sharing service
The Pirate Bay.
The
British Phonographic Industry (
BPI, which is the equivalent of our
RIAA) asked them to voluntarily block the site in 2011, but the ISPs refused at that time. Now it appears they have no choice, since they've now been ordered by the court to do just that. 5 ISPs, (
Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and
Virgin Media) have announced that they will comply immediately with the order.
This really isn't the first time this has happened in Europe, as courts in the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Italy and Denmark have already ruled similarly.
The significance of the ruling is that, although the US is a different kettle of fish in terms of the law, it's beginning to look like the ISPs might eventually assume responsibility for a lot more than they originally signed up for, like policing piracy and collecting royalties.
Personally I don't believe that having an ISP block a pirate site will make a hill of beans of difference. First of all, the whole piracy issue is totally blown out of proportion by the record label organizations (RIAA, BPI,
IFPI) as an catch-all excuse for a variety of economic and creative problems that trouble the industry. Since the majors are shareholder-owned, it's a convenient justification to pacify the shareholders while the real issue is more about performance (or lack thereof) of the executives, and their lack of vision.
There have been studies that have concluded that piracy is actually a good thing for music in that it promotes discovery of new music (I believe this myself). As the music world moves toward subscription streaming at high speed, soon there will be no reason to pirate any more. When you can hear virtually any song you want for a low flat fee per month, all the incentive to pirate goes away.
As far as US ISPs are concerned, many people much smarter than I believe that soon your subscription music fee will be included in your Internet access fee every month. At that point, it's all over for music piracy, then the suits in the executive offices will have to either find a new excuse or finally start to earn some of the big bucks they make.
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When it thinks that there's copyright infringement going against its major label clients, the RIAA shows no qualms about slapping a lawsuit on the service, and it usually wins.
