By Tim Castle
Britain's record industry said on Friday it had won a landmark court case against two people caught illegally swapping music on the Internet, forcing them to pay thousands of pounds in bills.
In the first case of its kind in Britain, London's High Court ruled in separate judgments that the two men were liable for illegal internet distribution of music, the British Phonographic Institute (BPI) said.
"It's the first time our assertion that file sharing is illegal has been tested in court," a BPI spokesman told Reuters.
"These individuals felt they had a case to defend, and the courts ruled that they emphatically don't."
The BPI said it had decided not to name the two men, a postman from Brighton in southern England and a man from King's Lynn in eastern England, who it had taken to court for breaking the Copyright and Patents Act.
The judgments were made earlier this month and in November.
The man from King's Lynn was ordered to make an immediate payment of
5,000 pounds ($8,860), and faces legal costs of 13,500 pounds and as well as an undecided sum for damages.The postman, a father of two, was told to pay 1,500 pounds pending a final decision on damages and costs.
Until now the BPI has reached out-of-court settlements with individuals it has traced uploading large amounts of music over so-called peer-to-peer networks, which distribute data between users instead of relying on a central server.
The BPI has launched around 140 legal cases since October 2004 against individuals as it cracks down on illegal filesharing.
In the United States the Recording Industry Association of America has sued thousands of individuals for unauthorized downloading of music.
The music industry estimates there are 900 million unauthorized music files are on the Internet.
But the BPI said the growth of illegal file sharing has slowed following the emergence of legitimate music download services such as Apple's iTunes and a greater awareness of the possibility of legal sanctions.
Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited.
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