EMI Records v BSB, High Court
Ten recording companies have obtained blocking injunctions against six Internet service providers for illegal file-sharing of their music by the ISPs’ users. The users had used three file-sharing websites, which had been extremely profitable off the back of their copyright-infringing activity. The recording companies had monitored the activity and notified the ISPs of over four million instances of illegal downloading. The High Court granted the injunction under Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, because the ISPs had actual knowledge of another person using their services to infringe copyright. For a court to make the blocking orders, the claimants had to establish four things: (1) the defendants were ISPs; (2) users of the websites infringed copyright; (3) users of the websites used the defendants’ services to do that; (4) the defendants had actual knowledge of that. These points were all made out here. The defendants had received blocking orders previously and had the technical means to block at relatively low cost; the blocking orders were therefore proportionate. The intellectual property rights of the claimants outweighed rights of website users and operators.
