I was interested to read the letter from Michael Truscott which took issue with Geoff Taylor of the British Phonographic Institute (BPI) describing unauthorised copying of music as theft (see [2005] Gazette, 7 April, 12).


It is worth noting that section 107(2A) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides that it is a criminal offence to communicate a work to the public, otherwise than in the course of a business, to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright.


Participants in file-sharing networks who make available to the world at large, via the Internet, copies of copyright works such as MP3 music files on their computers are likely to be committing this offence. True, it is not 'theft' within the meaning of the Theft Act, but that seems to me to be a lawyer's point if ever there was one.


As I understand it, it was people who have been making available large libraries of unauthorised copies of recordings in exactly this way who have been the target of the BPI's recent actions. There are all sorts of reasons why it may be thought desirable to pursue the parallel civil copyright remedies rather than bringing criminal proceedings. However, it is vitally important, in a society where intellectual property is of ever increasing value, that the message that unlawful copying is wrong is understood. The idea that it is entirely a civil matter, which at best is of economic interest only to the copyright owner, is also wrong.


Anyone who doubts that should look at Russia, where there is virtually no domestic music industry, and musicians cannot make a living, because all published works are widely pirated, and few - if any - effective remedies exist.




Nick Gardner, Herbert Smith, London