In the UK, providers have been ordered to block pirated music sites. And that's why

[Chewy_fox]

he UK music industry has secured a ban on UK's most prominent music streaming sites and related file-sharing services. The Mediasat editorial staff tells the details of this process. 

What happened

On February 3, the High Court of England and Wales heard arguments from the British Phonogram Producers Association (BPI) and Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL), representing record labels, over the harm that leading pirate sites are causing to the legitimate music streaming business. 

The court ruled that these sites violated the copyright of record labels and ordered Internet providers to block access to these resources. 

Who will be blocked

According to the court decision , four currently operating streaming copying sites will be blocked , in particular - Flyto (on average about 58 million visits from the UK per month), 2Conv (about 25 million visits), Fly2mp3 and H2 Converter. Despite the fact that the court's decision does not mention any other websites, according to TorrentFreak , other similar resources will be subject to blocking. 

Collectively, these websites generated over a billion visits per year .

What does BPI say?

The British Phonogram Producers Association (BPI) said they had been preparing for a trial for two years and provided the court with more than 3,000 pages of evidence in support of their claim to injure pirates.

In the months leading up to the judgment, BPI was in talks with six of the largest Internet service providers operating in the UK - BT, EE, PlusNet, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media. According to BPI, all ISPs have agreed not to oppose the lawsuit and comply with the court order .

“The High Court has confirmed all our suspicions and the accusations we put forward, namely the fact that the operators and users of these file sharing and streaming copying sites, as well as their associated streaming copying applications, infringe copyright in all possible ways, and therefore - must be blocked in the UK, said BPI General Counsel Kiaron Whitehead... - These court decisions are very important both from a legal and practical point of view. They are not the silver bullet to end piracy once and for all, but they build on existing European legislation and represent a significant step forward in copyright protection in the UK. We are grateful to the High Court for such effective handling of this group litigation in online hearings. For its part, BPI plans to take further actions in accordance with these decisions. "

Amanda Solloway , UK Minister of Intellectual Property, added: “This judgment is good news for artists and performers, and I am grateful to BPI for protecting our country's intellectual property laws. The creators of rip-streaming platforms are stealing hundreds of millions of pounds sterling that could have gone into further development of our music industry. "

What's next?

Against the backdrop of the court ruling, BPI called on the UK government to take additional measures to help reduce music piracy and add value to the legal music streaming market.

The organization is asking for a “duty of care” to be introduced for online music platforms, which would allow these platforms to abuse safe haven provisions to underpay for the music they use.

The association also expects the introduction of a rule that allows to claim damages from violators, which will prevent the work of illegal sites, and will also give copyright holders the opportunity to quickly and reliably send requests to providers to block resources. 

Last October, a UK parliamentary special committee launched an investigation into the impact of music piracy on the music streaming sector. To date, four meetings have already been held to discuss this problem.

File sharing sites and streaming platforms cause an estimated £ 200 million in damage to the music industry ecosystem every year.

Expert comment:

Here is what Ignat Berezhnoy , director of the Ukrainian Music Industry Association, partner of the Clear Sky Initiative, says about this :

Stream ripping is one of the most popular forms of piracy and together with other forms of piracy, according to the British Phonogram Producers Association (BPI), it takes more than £ 150 million a year from the British music sector. Therefore, of course, such a decision will have a positive impact on the development of the music industry and will serve as an example for other countries.

Note that the practice of blocking sites with content that infringes copyright is widespread and gaining in scale in the UK and other countries, and is increasingly being used to combat piracy.

For example, a few years ago, one of the world's largest music streaming sites, YouTube-mp3.org, ceased operations following lawsuits from record companies in the United States and the United Kingdom. This site was located in Germany and has 60 million monthly visitors from all over the world. As a result of the lawsuit, its operator agreed not to violate the rights of artists and record companies in the future.

Another example is the activities of one of the world's most famous anti-piracy groups BREIN (Netherlands), which in 2019 closed 564 pirate sites and blocked 258 Pirate Bay proxies, one of the world's largest BitTorrent indexers and directory for search for .torrent files. In the first half of 2020 alone, they contributed to the filing of 250 lawsuits and more than 1,000 anti-piracy activities. BREIN secured an Amsterdam court order to block about 175 Pirate Bay proxies and mirrors.

According to the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), music contributes € 81.9 billion annually to the EU economy and supports two million jobs. But this contribution is largely reduced due to the activities of pirate resources.

The European Commission, in its 2020 Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List, noted that according to the study, the commercial value of digital music piracy in 2015 was $ 29 billion worldwide, and according to experts in 2022 it could already grow to 53-117 billion dollars.

As for Ukraine, now it still remains on the Priority Watch List within the so-called "List 301" (Special 301 Report), as reported in the report of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) on legal protection and protection of copyright, including because for many years it has not been able to solve the problem of piracy on the Internet.

Repeatedly international associations for the protection of rights have drawn attention to the fact that without blocking sites, an effective fight against piracy is impossible. Ukraine is no exception, because the system "notice-and-takedown" (notification and deletion), provided for in the Law of Ukraine "On Copyright and Related Rights", has not been able to effectively earn. By the way, the Association Agreement with the EU stipulates that our country must introduce effective measures to combat piracy. If the existing system is ineffective, then the introduction of site blocking is a logical step to solve this problem.

In fact, in the context of the entire article, the blocking of sites in itself is a natural result of the attention that is paid to the protection of intellectual property in Britain. Note that a parliamentary committee is considering the issue of music piracy, there is even a Minister for Intellectual Property and various associations representing the interests of copyright holders. When the state has an understanding of the importance of intellectual property issues, effective mechanisms for protecting the latter appear, this is a natural process. Therefore, the sooner such an understanding and the corresponding infrastructure appear in Ukraine at the state level, the better will be the protection of intellectual property and the more effective the fight against piracy in this area

Edited May 21, 2021 by Chewy_fox

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