Irish ISP Will Punish File Sharing

GETTING THEIR IRISH UP: One small step for Ireland, one giant step for the music business. After more than a year of wrangling in court, EMI, Sony, Universal, Warner and Irish ISP Eircom finally have a deal. The labels will start supplying the IP addresses of alleged file-sharers to Eircom so that it may punish them, with frequent violators disconnected from the Internet for a year. The Big Four reached an out-of-court settlement with the country’s largest ISP in Feb. 2009 for a three-strike system to deal with subscribers who share copyrighted songs . The implementation of the agreement was held up over legalities, but last month the High Court in Dublin gave it the go-ahead. Next month, Eircom rival UPC will be next in court over its resistance to implement a similar deal. (5/24p)