Music Industry not Satisfied with New German Law on File-Sharing

Fearing that a recent adjustment in regulation may affect it by offering protection to the small-scale illegal file sharers music record industry has protested against German law.( dpa )

In Germany, due to the legal changes that follow a European Union guideline, internet service providers are compelled to give out the names of file sharers "operating on a commercial scale" if a judge rules this way.

Seemingly, the federal parliament approved on Friday a law which provides the industry with a new tool to trace internet users who download music illegally.

Internet service providers will be required to give out the names and addresses of those accused of copyright infringement. However, the procedure comes with a set of stipulations, which cause lawyers to say they might have a boomerang effect on the industry.

The rather huge penalties for schoolchildren and students have triggered a hostile response from the public, TrendNews reports.

Germany's main computing-industry federation, Bitkom, was quite happy with the change, and regards it as a proper solution to the uneasy task of tracing illegal file-sharers; still, the recording industry group Bundesverband Musikindustrie, has its doubts about this fearing it would only make the whole process more costly.

The new law cuts down considerably the reward that lawyers who write cease-and-desist letters for the music industry have been receiving. It stipulates that a repentant file-sharer will be obliged to only 100 euros (or 157 dollars) paid to the lawyers, not 1,000 or more as he had to until now.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government totally disagree with the old fees.

According to the federal court’s ruling on March 19, police can only use telephone-company information to open investigation on serious offense. Up to this point the court has not labeled music copiers as being serious criminals.