UK’s Landmark Ruling says “Cyberlockers, Stream-ripping sites and apps Infringe Copyright Laws”

[Chewy_fox]

The High Court of London has ruled after hearing the matter online that a cyberlocker, stream-ripping sites, and a stream-ripping app infringe UK copyright. The High Court has recently ordered internet companies to block them. These two rulings will benefit artists, songwriters, music publishers, and record companies who usually suffer annual piracy losses of amount nearly £200 million.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) calls on the Government for taking stronger measures to require plenty of platforms for two main purposes i.e., to tackle piracy and to boost the streaming economy. The BPI has won two major significantly new piracy cases and confirming for the first time that these cyberlockers and stream rippers including all those people who use them actually break the law.

These two cases were brought by major and independent labels before the High Court of London. The cases, however, were dealt with following an online hearing by Mr. Justice Miles at London’s High Court. He ruled, “All the operators and users of the websites use the services of internet companies to infringe copyright and that therefore the ISPs should block access to them. The infringing uses included providing or linking to a downloadable stream-ripping app as well.”

The decision of the High Court comes as a Parliamentary Select Committee inquiry which is currently looking into the economics of streaming along with the impact that piracy is having. The BPI said, “Stream-ripping and cyberlockers are responsible for part of the £200 million a year that is illegally taken out of the music industry ecosystem by piracy.”

The landmark group litigation undoubtedly is now representing a hard-won legal victory in an old ongoing fight against music piracy. The BPI has been working really hard in developing the cases for the last two years. The victory is a result of 3,000 pages of evidence and uncountable months-long of negotiations with the UK’s six biggest ISPs i.e., BT, EE, PlusNet, Sky, TalkTalk, and Virgin Media.

The Court heard the industry’s full-fledged legal arguments in an online hearing due to the reason of the COVID pandemic. The cases were brought before the court in relation to a major cyberlocker famous as Nitroflare and other numbers of stream-ripping sites which include two of the world’s biggest sites i.e., Flvto and 2Conv. Some of these sites were alleged of providing or linking to the downloadable app, MP3 Studio. These sites altogether attract over a billion visitors per year worldwide where tens of millions per year are generally from the UK alone. “The operators of the illegal stream-ripping sites make millions of pounds a year from advertising in the UK alone,” said BPI.

Cyberlocker sites like Nitroflare are wilfully designed in a manner to encourage and reward their users to upload different music and other copyrighted material. These sites then illegally share links of that uploaded content with others who can later illegally download it. Mr. Justice Miles observed, “Although music only represents around 10% of all files available on Nitroflare, the site warranted being blocked because it actively encouraged illegal sharing and it was highly unlikely that the site was being used for legitimate storage on a significant scale.”

The BPI’s two latest legal actions were group litigation cases by a major label and independent record companies being in a representative capacity on behalf of the members of two organizations i.e., BPI and PPL. However, the cases were brought under section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 against the six famous defendant ISPs (BT, EE, PlusNet, Sky, TalkTalk, and Virgin Media). These defendants chose not to attend the hearing because they eventually agreed after numerous negotiations with BPInot to oppose the case and to even comply with the High Court’s decision.

There are still four active stream-ripping sites that need to be blocked and they are Flvto, 2Conv, Flv2mp3, and H2Converter. Apart from the sites, the downloadable app provider MP3 Studio is also left.

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