The Easyinternet cafe chain has paid £80,000 to the record industry in an out-of-court settlement over music copyright.

The company had earlier been found guilty of copyright infringement for allowing customers to download music from the internet and onto CDs.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) had taken legal action after learning the company was permitting music copies to be made for a fee of £5.

On Wednesday the BPI announced that Easyinternet had agreed to pay it £80,000 in damages for copyright infringement, plus legal costs of £130,000.

We could have spent the next year in court arguing the legal point, and that's what I think they got scared of
Stelios Haji-Ioannou

The BPI praised what it called the "sense" of the company's owner, entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou - founder of the Easyjet airline.

BPI executive chairman Peter Jamieson said: "The irony should not be lost on anyone that someone who aggressively protects their own intellectual property - as is the case with Stelios and the Easy Group - should seek to offer a commercial music service without paying the creators of the copyright."

Mr Haji-Ioannou told BBC News Online that the £80,000 settlement fee was far less than the BPI had originally sought.

He said it had originally asked for an "extortionate" £1m.

"They came back with an attractive offer - a 92% discount on the original claim," he said.

"Every case has a settlement value. We could have spent the next year in court arguing the legal point, and that's what I think they got scared of. I'm glad I can move on."

He confirmed that his company had dropped its appeal against the judgement made at the High Court in January.

He said in hindsight his internet cafe management had been mistaken and "short-sighted" in allowing customers to copy music.

During the court case, Easyinternet cafe said it had ceased the commercial service of downloading copy-protected music in September 2001.

As a result, it argued it should not be held responsible for what its customers did while using its computers.

But judge Justice Peter Smith rejected this defence.

Mr Haji-Ioannou said Easyinternet had also put forward the argument that downloading music was no different to recording a favourite television programme to watch later, which is covered by copyright law.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/music/2933163.stm

Big difference from the Princeton and Michigan Tech cases.

These guys were charging a fee to deliver material they had no right to use in a commercial manner. It was a true commercial enterprise. They were attempting to profit from their actions.

And I'm no expert on the exchange rate, but it seems to me as if they are accepting less in a commercial infringement case than they are asking FOR EACH SONG in the case of a college student who merely indexed the location of mp3 files and actually did nothing to profit from his actions.

So let's see if the 4 students get the same amount of discount they will only owe a little over 7 billion 416 million dollars. Shouldn't be a problem. Pocket change....

There are quite a few interesting aspects of this story. First of all, BPI is claiming that Easyinternet was "scared" to go to litigation, yet it was BPI who reduced the settlement figure to a hand-slap. This makes it look to me like BPI didn't want the publicity.

Secondly, I find it very alarming that the record industry continues to be completely oblivious and ignorant to potential opportunities of sales in the market such as this, and instead chooses to cut off their nose to spite their face. Are these people complete ignoramuses? Here is an enterprise making money from music, and the record industry decides that this is WRONG!!!??? No wonder their sales continue to decrease. I am continually amazed that these people made any money ever.

Finally, it would interesting to see if Easyinternet would continue to allow downloads of independent music for burning, or was BPI successful in creating a total stranglehold on them which would seem like a great candidate for a counter-suit. Someone needs to remind Easyinternet of that fact.

Music Industry BAH! They're just a big bunch of fat cats sitting in leather chairs ontop of a huge office in a large building. They live in luxury and when they lose a few million dollars that they were going to burn on themselves for doing NOTHING! Most people pirating music want only a few songs off the cd not the entire cd which most of the songs they hate! Put out more singles so people can buy the singles for a CHEAP price so THEY can choose which songs they want and not having piles they don't. Also having to change a million cds one after another just to listen to a few songs then change what they want to listen to is also tedious/annoying to say the least.

That's my opinion if you want to debate it, fine we shall then...

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That cafe didn't do anything wrong. They offered a service where customers can write downloaded files to a CD. They cant be expected to look in every single file for a potential copyright infringement.

I would guess this was a warning to other internet cafes.

How low can you go.. how low can you go