James Delahunty
1 Jul 2005 9:34
The Shihlin District Court in Taiwan has dealt a blow to the IFPIM's international fight against P2P file sharing. An operator of a P2P file-sharing network called ezPeer was found not guilty of infringing intellectual property rights. The P2P service is subscription based and requires users to pay a fee before they share their files with each other. The court said Weber Wu, President of ezPeer did not engage in the reproducing or distributing copyrighted material.
The court also stated that no limitations are placed on P2P file sharing by the current laws and regulations. "We will keep negotiating with record labels to find a way that would create benefits for us, the copyright holders and consumers," Wu said after the verdict. The IFPI is devastated and shocked with the decision. "This is the darkest day for the music industry," said Robin Lee, secretary-general of IFPI in Taiwan. "We will appeal to the end."
So now that the case is so far lost against the operator of the P2P service, the IFPI will is set to do what it's best at - sue individual users for copyright infringement. Another case against kuro.com.tw, Taiwan's largest file-sharing site is yet to be decided. According to Lee, this decision could batter the music industry mentioning the failure of the nation's first legal online music distributor, iBIZ Entertainment Technology Corp, which lasted just 15 months.
Sources:
Taipei Times
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