Taylor doesn't rule out return to courts for filesharers

16:04 | Tuesday January 26, 2010

The topic came up during today’s Midem panel called Music and Digital – the Political Initiatives to Regulate the Relationship between these two Industries.

Taylor, who appeared alongside IFPI Sweden chairman Ludvig Werner and Impala co-president Patrick Zelnick, explained that the BPI’s initial decision to take individual filesharers to court came about five years ago because ISPs were not prepared to work with his organisation to crack down on online piracy.

He revealed that the BPI eventually took about 150 individuals to court but “it cost a lot of money”.

Taylor added, “And you can’t scale it to millions of people. There needs to be a process of education.”

However, he did not rule out an eventual return to legal action from the BPI, explaining, “There may be some people who will only respond to a law suit. But we prefer education.”

Taylor also spoke of the dynamism of the UK’s digital music market, explaining that as well as booming download sales, revenue were starting to come through from subscription services and there were “about 40” digital music services in the UK already.”