jsl used our newssubmit to tell us that British Phonographic Industry wants EasyInternetCafe (Internet Cafe Chain) to pay a £100,000 fine, because its users have been downloading copyright music onto CDs.
EasyInternetCafe offered users the facility to download music and burn them on CD-Rs, but the company has already removed the CD-RW drives because the services was abused by 'pirates'. The BPI was however not satisfied with this:
EasyInternetCafe claims it offered the BPI its full assistance once it was confronted about the activity. |
"We let the BPI see our hard drives so they could assess the extent of the problem, and we have removed CD burners from all our stores. However, we don't believe their assessment of how much music was being downloaded and burned to CD is accurate," explained the EasyInternetCafe spokesman.
After seeing its proposed fine of £1,000,000 turned down, the BPI dropped the penalty to £100,000 -- still too much for EasyInternetCafe, which is offering just £26,000.
"We're fully aware that litigation costs a lot of money, and both sides are keen to avoid spending a lot of money on legal bills. We're prepared to pay something to avoid the cost of litigation, but we don't want to be taken for a large sum of money," said the EasyInternetCafe spokesman.
He added that the BPI has given EasyInternetCafe until 14 August to agree to pay £100,000.
It seems that the recording industry tries to get their money everywhere they can, but don't let those who have the responsibility, the individual user, pay. Maybe it's too expensive to trace everyone down, because everyone is doing it ? And maybe they should look at the reason why everyone is doing it.
Anyway, read the entire story on ZDnet here.
Source: ZDnet.co.uk
