IFPI Launches Biggest Anti-Piracy Campaign Yet

The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is filing 2,100 more lawsuits for a total of 3,800-plus and expanding its anti-piracy efforts to South America, Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Hong Kong and Sinagpore, according to Reuters. The organization claims 900 million unauthorized files are online. IFPI head John Kennedy said at a news conference in Stockholm: “This is a significant escalation of our enforcement actions against people who are uploading and distributing copyrighted music on p2p networks. For the first time there will be financial and criminal sanctions for this activity in countries in South East Asia and Latin America. This reflects the sharply rising levels of internet piracy in those regions. The message today is that, from Sweden to Hong Kong and from Singapore to Argentina, there are no havens for the theft of music on the internet.” So far, the organization says it has collected fines of $3,000-plus from thousands of people — mostly males 20-30. Press release | Reaction from consumer rights group BEUC.

Meanwhile, Sony BMG is still reeling from its bungled efforts to reduce piracy by restricting CD use in computers. Microsoft said it will treat Sony BMG’s newest copy-protection as malware while the record company, according to USA Today, will pull the affected titles from stores and start an exchange program. For a sense of scope, Sony BMG released 20-plus 20 titles with the XCP copy-protection software; more than half of the 4 million already manufactured have been sold.

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