Brain forces website administrator to stop offering orchestral tapes through court
A man who offered music and orchestral tapes on six websites and a number of special Facebook pages has been forced to stop offering the music via an ex-parte order. The man has taken the websites offline and closed the Facebook pages.
According to Brein, it concerned thousands of orchestral tapes that were offered on the websites and Facebook, while the man would not have the permission of the rightholders and would not have the necessary licenses. There would be unauthorized duplication and disclosure, resulting in copyright infringement. The judge ordered the man to stop his activities within 24 hours, with a penalty of EUR 2000 per day for each day he continued to do so.
According to Brein, the man would distribute orchestral tapes on six websites and four Facebook pages. He advertised the websites on Facebook, which contained lists of the orchestral tapes offered. To promote the sale of self-produced orchestral tapes, the man gave away illegally copied orchestral tapes for free, according to Brein. The self-produced and on request orchestral tapes of original musical works by third parties were offered from 40 euros, something for which he did not have permission, according to Brein. These included orchestral tapes of songs by Guus Meeuwis, André Hazes, Marco Borsato and, for example, Alicia Keys and David Bowie.
On the Facebook pages, the members exchanged orchestral tapes among themselves on request. If one of the members of the pages was in possession of an orchestral band desired by someone, the requester usually received a link from WeTransfer via a personal message in order to be able to download the orchestral band. Sometimes a WeTransfer link was also shared publicly on the Facebook page. Complete folders with multiple orchestra bands were also shared. The man Brein targeted with the ex-parte injunction was the one who answered the requests on Facebook and sent the personal messages with the download links.
Brein has also requested Facebook to close a dozen similar pages on which orchestral tapes are exchanged. According to Brein, Facebook has since closed these pages because it could be shown that the pages were being used for sharing content without permission from the copyright holders.
In case of conflicts in the field of intellectual property, an ex-parte injunction can be requested from the court. In this prohibition, no hearing takes place and the opposing party is not heard. Such an adversarial injunction can only be issued in the event of great urgency and if there is an obvious copyright infringement.
An orchestra band is basically an instrumental recording of the music accompaniment for singers. Using an orchestra band allows an artist to do a live performance without the need for instruments and musicians.