James Delahunty
14 Oct 2005 14:35
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has criticised both Apple and Napster for advertising their legal music download services on websites that promote or assist with illegal music sharing. Other major services in the UK have been criticised in the past for this practice too, including Sky, o2, Barclays and BT Broadband. The BPI said that advertising legal music downloads on a site that offers pirated music for free is a "sick joke".
"We deplore the unauthorized distribution of music on Internet sites which prosper by selling advertising on the back of copyright theft. It is hugely ironic that iTunes and Napster, two companies which have done so much to encourage legal downloading, have been caught up in these sites. We urge all companies to be vigilant and put systems in place to ensure they do not advertise on such sites, even unwittingly." said Steve Redmond, BPI director of communications.
Some lawyers have warned that companies advertising on these sites could face litigation. "Copyright on the Internet is a very fast moving legal area. Any copyright owner or connected company advertising on an illegal download site is badly advised and taking big legal risks." said Susan Singleton, solicitor with e-commerce lawyers Singletons, and editor of IT Law Today. Online advertising is the fastest growing marketing medium in history with expenditure on ads in the UK expected to reach £1bn this year.
Sky Digital is one service being advertised on these websites. The ads for the service were found on a site that offers 20 Century Fox's Transporter 2 movie for download. Through the MPAA, 20 Century Fox amongst others has been trying to shut down these sites and force P2P networks to implement features that limit their networks to authorised sharing. Both Napster and Apple were disappointed to hear their advertisements had reached these sites and explained how it may have happened before promising that the ads would be removed.
Source:
Guardian Unlimited