Aleksandar Dovnikovic
2001-Feb-17 06:00 UTC
[vorbis] Belgium police raides homes of Napster users (!!!)
>From CNET news:Belgium cracks down on file swapping By The Associated Press Special to CNET News.com February 15, 2001, 3:20 p.m. PT BRUSSELS, Belgium--Acting on complaints from the music industry, police have raided the homes of people who use music-sharing Web sites, looking for evidence they infringed copyright rules, the prosecutors' office said Thursday. Police searched the home of the first suspect in late December and two more in January, Olivier Bogaert, a prosecution spokesman, told Belgian news media. He said the searches were part of an investigation of the Internet site Mp3blast.com, but added that four cases against Napster users are under review. Marcel Heymans, general director of the Belgium branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said he warned police of alleged copyright infractions. Heymans said his organization had tracking equipment that could search for violators "by the thousands." At the moment, he said the group was only targeting people "who had been clearly warned yet persevered with the practice." The European Parliament on Wednesday endorsed tougher rules granting artists and record labels more copyright protection for works downloaded from the Internet. The vote came days after a U.S. appeals court effectively ordered Napster to stop people who use the music-sharing service from swapping copyrighted music without charge and without restriction. The 15 EU governments are expected to approve the new law in a matter of weeks. It would take effect after national parliaments give their blessing, a process that can take up to 18 months. ------------------------------------------------------- --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'vorbis-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.