Associations representing the audiovisual commerce industry and the music industry in Portugal want to tighten their grip on Internet content piracy. In early January, ACAPOR promises to deliver a list of 1,000 IP addresses of users who downloaded pirated films to the Attorney General’s Office, while AFP is holding a series of meetings with political parties to raise awareness of the need to change legislation current.
The list of a thousand IP addresses that ACAPOR will deliver on January 5 to the Attorney General’s Office is, according to the association, the largest collection of complaints from Portuguese courts. But the organization promises to repeat the dose and deliver another thousand addresses every month.
Apparently there is no shortage of «material» to list, not least because the association estimates that 50 million downloads are made every year by customers of Portuguese operators.
From the list that will be delivered in January, the overwhelming majority of the identified IP addresses (in a total of 970) refer to internet users who shared «cinematographic works» without due authorization, thus committing the crime of usurpation of rights, punished by Portuguese law with a penalty of up to 3 years in prison «, says the association.
Hadopi Law in Portugal?
The Portuguese Phonographic Association (AFP) has adopted another strategy to combat music piracy and is promoting meetings with political parties to raise awareness of the problem. Yesterday the director general of AFP met with the vice president of PSD with the portfolio of Culture, Nilza Mouzinho de Sena, but he intends to extend the initiative to other political parties.
The AFP estimate points to a 70% loss in turnover in the music industry due to piracy over the past five years. In total, the number of units sold was reduced by more than 50%, with around 60% being lost in direct jobs.
The association argues that there is an urgent need for effective legislation to address the problem of illegal downloads and uploads, and considers that current legislation, which already provides for a three-year prison term, is inadequate. According to AFP, this law was designed for physical piracy and is leading to the trial of criminal cases against 16-year-olds for downloading.
The Hadopi law, adopted in France, with the policy of the three notices, is considered an example to follow. AFP intends to adopt more consumer-friendly legislation in Portugal, which also has a system of notices delivered by Internet service providers when the use of copyrighted content is detected and then culminates in a sanction.
The position in relation to the legislation is common to ACAPOR, which underlines not agreeing with the law. The association has also met with all parliamentary groups, with the exception of BE, having transmitted «the imperative need for legislative changes in order to adapt the existing law to the current scenario», he said in a statement.
«We do not think that the remission of this type of activity to the ordinary Criminal Courts is the most appropriate and efficient, but apparently the political parties, and the government in particular, disagree since in these two years that we have been calling for changes, they did nothing «, says the same document.
Even so, ACAPOR assumes that this is the law that exists and that it will not stop using it to penalize those who download illegal content.
Editorial note: Some rooks have been fixed.
