33 investigated in online piracy crackdown

Police are investigating 33 home Internet users in Singapore for illegally distributing music files online, part of a global crackdown on piracy, officials said Wednesday.

The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) triggered the wave of action that involves 2,100 cases in Asia, Europe and South America for the first time.

A police force spokesman told The Straits Times that a complaint was received from the Record Industry Association of Singapore (Rias), the local arm of IFPI, about the 33 users.

They allegedly shared music files online, a criminal offence. Rias provided police with the Internet protocol addresses, the electronic trails left by the users.

If convicted of unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials, the users could face up to five years in jail and 100,000 Singapore dollars (59,171 U.S.) in fines.

Edward Neubronner, Rias chief executive, said the 33 file-sharers received warnings earlier to stop distributing and downloading pirated music via file sharing networks like Gnutella and FastTrack.

“These users, whom we have identified in the last three months, were distributing anything from a few hundred to a thousand songs each,” he was quoted as saying.

Rias said “instant warning messages” were sent to nearly 1,500 users here found distributing or downloading music files. (dpa)