Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office Brought an Indictment against P2P Website, KURO. Users Planed for Referendum. KURO Countered IFPI by Condemning IFPI’s 8 Statements as Repression.

Reacting to the event that Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office brought an indictment against P2P (Peer to Peer) music service platform, KURO, which has 500,000 members, for its violation of Copyright Law, IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) issued eight statements that requested KURO to stop the infringing act immediately, made an appeal to users’ secession from P2P website, and simultaneously made the investors and the fee collection agency public. KURO reproached IFPI’s 8 statements with repressive conduct. Meanwhile, huge controversy and debate were also stirred up on the website, and users even planned to hold referendum so as to disseminate consumers’ thoughts and feelings.

Likewise, KURO issued its statements elucidating that most consumers searched and exchanged MP3 files with the software supplied by KURO simply for family or personal use, and such conduct complied with the scope of “reasonable use” as regulated in the Copyright Law so that the legality of such use should be unquestionable. As for IFPI’s disclosure of the relevant information of KURO’s website investors in the press conference, KURO suspected that such conduct was a kind of business repression through legal method. (2003.12)

CYJ/CCS