Eircom offers to block on a phone call

The craven nature of Eircom is surprisingly deep - not only has it happily signed up to the music industry's demands that alleged file sharers must be kicked off the internet, but it's announced it;ll block access to sites on the music industry's say-so:

Irma, which represents major music groups EMI, Sony-BMG, Warner and Universal, is to begin compiling lists of websites that it claims are damaging its business. It will then apply for a court order, requiring Eircom and other internet providers to block access to these sites.

Under the terms of an agreement between Eircom and Irma, Eircom will not oppose any court application, meaning that the orders will be automatically granted. A spokesman for Eircom confirmed that Eircom ‘‘will not oppose any application [Irma] may make seeking the blocking of access from their network’’ to blacklisted websites.

IRMA is going to start by having The Pirate Bay blocked; it's not clear if anywhere else in the world access to web sites hangs on the say-so of private companies without the need for any sort of judicial oversight whatsoever.

It's not clear what Eircom will do if one of its many, many fine competitors do oppose an application, and the courts reject it.

[Thanks to Karl T]

Labels try to throw weight at Irish ISPs

Because Eircom rolled over and signed up for three strikes, the music industry has now decided to push its luck and try to insist the rest of the industry falls into line:

Irish Times says EMI, Sony (NYSE: SNE), UMG and WMG have written to companies including mobile operator 3 Ireland and hotspot outfit Bitbuzz warning of legal action within seven days if they don’t follow suit. The letter also hints of further action to come regarding the blocking of torrent trackers like The Pirate Bay.

Oh, yes. Some more ruinously expensive lawsuits built on shaky half-understood legal principles. That's exactly what the record companies should be doing.

The labels seem to believe that an out-of-court settlement forms a legal precedent. Perhaps they've had to let the lawyers go and are now running their legal activities with nothing more than a dog-eared Law Made Simple to guide them?

Ireland embraces "three strikes"

During my coffee-making haze earlier this morning, Peter Bazalgette was on Today [Scroll down to 7.32 to listen] pointing out politely that you'll never stop people pirating stuff.

Presumably Irish ISP Eircom hadn't had a chance to hear this before signing up for a Three Strikes policy.

During the Bazalgette piece, Ed Stourton summarised the position of the Digital Britain report as seeing access to broadband as being on a par with access to power and water: an essential service for the way we live now. It's impossible to see how you could square a belief that broadband is an essential service with arbitrary removal of that service on the whim of a record company. Is any company - in Britain, or Ireland, or elsewhere - really going to deny entire households access to the network simply to please Sony or Warners? The suspicion has to be that adopting the policy is designed to shut the record industry up, rather than shut file sharers out.

Majors sue ISP - in Ireland

Eircom, the Irish telecommunications giant, is being sued by IRMA, which is the RIAA's client in the Republic; the reason, of course, is that the labels don't believe the ISP is doing enough to stop illegal file-sharing.

Part of the record company's bid to try and make other people responsible for doing its job, the case will be heard in July.