Australian music industry cracks down on Bittorrent infringers

LONDON, UK (IFPI) - The Australian Record Industry's anti-piracy unit today launched raids on the Perth offices of a major Internet Services Provider in the first Australian crackdown on the use BitTorrent technology for alleged music copyright infringement.

In court sanctioned civil raids, music industry investigators and lawyers executed Anton Piller orders issued by the Federal Magistrates Court in Sydney.

The raids centred on the headquarters of Swiftel Communications at 250 St Georges Terrace in Perth's Central Business District.

Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) General Manager Michael Speck said: 'We have identified Swiftel as an ISP which has adopted BitTorrent technology to link infringers to music clips and sound recordings. We believe hundreds of thousands of downloads have been conducted during the last year in breach of copyright laws.'

'These raids are a new and important development in our fight against internet music piracy. The misuse of BitTorrent technology allows the high-speed download of large files from a wide number of sources.'

'MIPI has identified this Australian ISP as using the technology allegedly to conduct high volume sophisticated linking to illegal sound recordings and music video clips for its customer base. Songs, video clips, television shows and movies are being distributed.'

'An example of the music videos we've identified as being traded on the network are:

• Welcome to the Jungle - Guns ‘n' Roses copyright owned by Universal
• Kids - Robbie Williams & Kylie Minogue copyright owned by EMI
• Sometime - Britney Spears copyright owned by Sony BMG
• Alive - Pearl Jam copyright owned by Sony BMG
• Faint - Linkin Pink copyright owned by Warner'

'The Australian record industry will continue to take legal action to protect its copyright whether it's on the internet or elsewhere. We will continue to act against ISPs who we believe are set-up as vehicles for piracy.'

We will now proceed to use evidence gathered in the Perth raids to bring a copyright prosecution before the courts', Mr Speck concluded.

Contact:
Michael Speck
General Manager
Music Industry Piracy Investigations
+0061 412 969 653