EMI's lawyer is certainly earning his pay these days. Following on from the news earlier this week that EMI had joined the other major labels in a lawsuit against online music-streaming service Grooveshark, the label has now launched a lawsuit against the Irish state for not "blocking, diverting or interrupting of communications" which breach copyright law. Essentially, this means that EMI is objecting to the lack of obstacles set into place by the Irish regulatory bodies to restrict the amount of internet piracy in this country.
In October 2010, Mr Justice Peter Charleton acknowledged that record companies in this country (EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal) were being harmed by online file-sharing but that the laws to prohibit piracy in this country weren't enforceable, saying that no proper provisions for blocking internet communications is in place making Ireland non-compliant with its obligations under European law.
Richard Bruton, Minister of State for Enterprise, had pledged to address the situation in the New Year but, with nothing having been done in 2012 so far, EMI appear to have lost patience filing a lawsuit against the Irish state for failure to adhere to EU copyright law, which could potentially lead to the Irish state attempting to enforce website-blocking directives despite last December's judgement that Eircom's "3 strikes" rule be abolished on privacy grounds.
