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NEWZBIN CASE OPENS UP NEW MUSIC FRONT

■ BY ROBERT ASHTON

The music industry will waste no time in demanding ISPs immediately block illegal music websites following last week’s landmark court decision requiring BT to prevent its customers accessing pirate website Newzbin2.

Senior executives have told Music Week the music industry has been refining its strategy as it followed the case, brought by the Motion Picture Association.

The ruling demonstrated that Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, which has been on the statute books since the late 90s but never tested, can be used to force

ARTISTS ■ BY ALAN JONES

2011 IS FAST BECOMING The year of the female solo act with unprecedented chart successes in the first seven months of the year.

Female solo artists have topped the Official UK Albums Chart for 25 of the first 29 weeks of 2011, led by Adele but also including Beyonce, Rihanna and Lady GaGa.

Music Week research today shows they have also occupied all of the top-three places on the albums chart 10 times this year – and twice the whole of the top five – something not previously achieved in 55 years of chart history.

Five of the six biggest selling albums of the year-to-date have been from female artists, who have claimed their highest ever share of sales – 34.15% this year, compared with 21.31% last year.

Our analysis, however, shows that despite the success of the top artists, only 11.26% of releases are by female solo artists.

This weekend, the tragic death of Amy Winehouse further extended the female chart dominace. bradysurb@yahoo.com

»See pages 4–5 and charts pages for more on this story

BT to take direct action and block the distributer of pirated material.

In around half a dozen key defence points, BT claimed it did not know its service was used to infringe copyright. But, in the High Court on Thursday The Hon. Mr Justice Arnold “blew BT’s out of the water”.

More importantly for the creative and music industries, Arnold has also established a clear precedent and established that rights owners can invoke 97A to block illegal sites.

The music industry’s strategy is now decided and Music Week understands the BPI will now use the 97A precedent as part of its arsenal against illegal websites.

The first likely step, which could be just days away, will be to ask ISPs to block some of the biggest illegal websites. It is not known yet which sites – and, therefore, which ISPs will be targeted.

If ISPs do not block these sites voluntarily, the BPI will ratchet up the pressure and will seek court orders – citing 97A and the MPA case – requiring them to do so ■ See page 17 for more robert.ashton@intentmedia.co.uk

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