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World's first online piracy case to be tried in Australia

Three Sydney men face jail after pleading guilty last week to breaking copyright laws in what the Australian recording industry believes is the world's first criminal prosecution for online music piracy.

Until now legal action against music Web sites such as Napster have relied on civil law and record industry representatives said the criminal case sent a powerful message that music piracy would face the full force of the law.

Tommy Le, 19, Peter Tran, 20, and Charles Kok Hau Ng, 20, last week pleaded guilty to infringing the copyright of music giants Universal Music, Sony, Warner, BMG, EMI and Festival Mushroom Records.

Police arrested the trio in April after raiding their homes in Sydney following a joint investigation with Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), a record industry-funded watchdog.

They face up to five years' jail and US$39,325 in fines for illegally distributing up to US$60 million worth of music on a Web site called "MP3 WMA land."

MIPI investigator Michael Speck said his organization would ask the court to ensure the punishment meted out to the three reflected their crimes, although he declined to say whether this meant MIPI would push for a custodial sentence.

Speck said it was believed to be the first prosecution of its type in the world.

"This is an important copyright case for industries all over the world because it confirms the view that you can be found and you can be prosecuted even though you hide behind the anonymity that the Internet offers," Speck said.

Le, Tran and Kok Hau Ng will be sentenced on Nov. 10.

Speck, a former detective with the New South Wales state police, said the case also showed police were now taking online copyright infringement as a serious crime.

MIPI estimates online piracy costs the Australian music industry up to US$200 million dollars in revenue every year.

"It's one from being perceived as a very low-level, almost innocuous, activity to being part of a portfolio of professional criminals," he said.

"It's become increasingly sophisticated and the profits of pirates have skyrocketed."

MIPI estimates online piracy costs the Australian music industry up to US$200 million dollars in revenue every year.

Speck said the meth`ods used to track down online pirates were improving and his organization had a global monitoring system that could detect online infringement of Australian copyright.

"The sleuth work is becoming increasingly easy to do, it's almost impossible to wipe your fingerprints off a digital crime scene," he said.

Speck said the Internet service providers who hosted music pirates Web sites could become the industry's next target.

"They're clearly not immune from prosecution," he said.

"They spend a great deal of their marketing effort exonerating themselves or distancing themselves from responsibility for this activity and increasingly courts are recognizing the connection between this activity and their benefit," he said.

Copyright lawyer Adam Simpson said the view of online pirates as teenage geeks operating from a back bedroom was outdated and organized crime was muscling into the area.
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