- Ruling comes weeks before criminal prosecution in Sweden –
London, 27th November 2008 - Music companies internationally today welcomed a landmark Danish ruling involving the world’s best known pirate distributor of music, books and films. The decision confirms the illegality of Sweden’s Pirate Bay and requires a Danish ISP to implement measures to block access to the site.

13 November 2008
“The authorities in Bulgaria have taken down Torrentvalley.com, a major provider of torrent – services, that was distributing copyright infringing content” was reported in an IFPI official press-release.

Sofia, 12th November 2008
The authorities in Bulgaria have taken down Torrentvalley.com, a major BitTorrent service that enabled its users to copy and distribute copyright infringing music files.

This is one of the series of actions realized by police officers against the illegal distribution of protected intellectual products. 8 servers with more than 7 terabytes (TB) of music, movies and software were seized.

WESTLIFE DOMINATE IFPI PLATINUM AWARDs
22nd October 2008

Irish band Westlife pick up IFPI Platinum Awards for three separate albums in the third quarter of 2008. Albums achieve an IFPI Platinum Award when they first cross the million sales mark in Europe and for each additional million sales they rack up.

Thursday October 2, 2008
By Robert Ashton

The first signs that the historic joint memorandum of understanding struck between the BPI, Government and the ISP industry to tackle unlawful filesharing is bearing fruit comes as the six major ISPs begin to send letters to their infringing subscribers.

By Robert Ashton

An historic agreement was reached yesterday afternoon with eight industry bodies, including the BPI and AIM, signing up to launch a new umbrella organisation that will “present a unified industry voice” to be headed by BMR chairman Andy Heath and chief executive Feargal Sharkey.

London, 1st July 2008 – Four alleged operators of a popular copyright-infringing music forum face heavy fines and potential prison sentences after Italian police shut down the site and seized servers and thousands of illegal files and discs.

Helsinki, 19th June 2008
12 operators of the Finreactor peer-to-peer-network were convicted today by the Turku Court of Appeal in Finland. Finreactor was a BitTorrent network that had 10,000 registered users. The National Bureau of Investigation Finland raided the site in December 2004. District Court of Turku convicted in October 2006 fourteen operators for copyright offences and seven for aiding for copyright offences. The operators were in charge of the technical operation of the system as well as the user control. The convicted defendants were ordered to pay compensation, damages and expenses of €566,000 to the right holders.

London, 11th June 2008 – The international recording industry today welcomed the arrest by UK police of a man suspected of selling a vast quantity of pre-release albums on eBay, weeks before their official release.
The man, a DJ and music reviewer based in London, was arrested on suspicion of theft and money laundering. The case centres on the alleged sale of pre-release copies of albums by artists including Foals, Delays, Grand National and Kelly Rowland. It is believed that he used his position to obtain promotional copies of albums from record companies which he then sold on.

Officers of GDCOC and the Haskovo District Directorate of Police seized 4 servers, films and software freely made available to over 5 thousands ISP’s subscribers during an operation yesterday.
The illegal distribution of copyright content by a local ISP was cut off during a combined operation executed by officers of the Sector “Combat against Organized Crime” of Haskovo and operative officers of the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Bulgaria.

• New multi-language guide “Young People, Music & the Internet” aims at tens of thousands of schools in 21 countries
• Research suggests one in two 9-14 year-olds downloads music without parental supervision

London, 30th April, 2008 – A global information campaign is launched today to explain the world of music downloading to teachers and parents worldwide.
A new pocket-sized guide, published by children’s internet charity Childnet International and supported by Pro-music, the international alliance of music sector groups, will be distributed through schools and colleges, libraries, record stores, teaching portals and websites in 21 countries.

IFPI Platinum Europe Awards – Q1 2008
15 April 2008

Eight albums have achieved their first IFPI Platinum Europe Award in the first quarter of 2008. The awards mark their achievement in selling more than a million copies across Europe.
Alicia Keys, the American R&B musician, saw her 2007 album As I Am pick up its first IFPI Platinum Europe Award. The album, containing the singles No One and Like You’ll Never See Me Again, topped the charts in Italy and sold well across Europe.

Mexico City, 2nd April 2008 – The recording and film industry organisations in Mexico have joined together to create a new anti-piracy body that represents both their interests. The Asociación Protectora de Cine y Música México (APCM) will tackle the problems of both disc and digital piracy in the country.