When Music Industry Blackmail Backfires

from the lets-try-that-again dept

It seems that the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which appears to be their equivalent of the RIAA, made a strategic mistake. We had mentioned last month their ridiculous attempts to extort money from EasyEverything, saying that the company owned them ?1m because they had CD-burners in their internet cafes. It was never clear how they came up with that number, but they kept backing down to a lower number each time EasyEverything refused to pay. Part of the extortion plan, it seems, was to “threaten” EasyEverything that they would “go public” with the info. What exactly would they go public with? The fact that EasyEverything had CD-burners in their internet cafes? I don’t quite see how that would be very scary to EasyEverything. In fact, it wasn’t. In response, EasyEverything went public with the whole case themselves, and now BPI is going to court to get a gag order to force them to shut up already. Sounds like things over in the UK with BPI might be even more screwed up than the RIAA here in the US.


Add Your Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...