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| 13 September 2003 |
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| Lene's record company threatens with million-figure lawsuit |
| Source : VG |
Illegal files were put on a server at the Postal Office's daughter company.
EMI-director Per Eirik Johansen is confounded and threatens the Postal Office's daughter company Ergo Group with a million-figure lawsuit. For several days, Lene Marlin's new CD has been poured out from one of the company's servers.
Lene Marlin was not available for a comment yesterday, but the record company thinks it's horrible that the launch schedule for Another Day now is bungled.
Yesterday, VG wrote about how the net users could download Lene Marlin's album Another Day from the net 10 days before it arrives in the stores. Thursday evening the record company traced where the illegal files were placed, and yesterday EMI-director Per Eirik Johansen and IFPI-manager Sæmund Fiskvik personally showed up at Ergo Group, confronting the company's management with the findings.
Confounded
- I get very confounded when I observe that when you're about to download the record from the website, a lot of advertisements and porn starts pouring out. Somebody has earned a lot of money on our work. In addition, it has to be very embarrassing for one of Norway's largest data companies and a semi-public department service with 2000 employees that this happens at their place, the EMI-director Per Eirik Johansen roars.
The record company now plans a lawsuit.
- With a lot of zeros, Johansen informs.
- Millions?
- That is not improbable. We're going to demand a compensation for physical sale and the devastating effect this has for the launch. This is horrible. Lene is our greatest artist, and we are at the outset of a global launch, now the whole planned press strategy is bungled, Johansen states.
At Ergo Group they won't comment on whether they know who's guilty of the illegal distribution via the company's machine, and neither will they comment on the threat of a million-figure lawsuit.
Serious business
- This is a case we look upon as very serious. The machine is secured and made unavailable, and the case will now be reported, says information manager Wibecke Brusdal at Ergo Group. Yesterday afternoon the server was closed down, and it was no longer possible to download the album from the Norwegian source.
At the website of the Postal Office, Ergo Group is presented as one of Norway's leading IT-company, delivering electronic solutions, management of IT-systems, and administrative support functions.
- Is it embarrassing that you were the source of the illegal distribution when just IT-systems are your expertise?
- Like I said, this is a case we look very seriously upon, that's why we have been focusing on confining the damage, says Brusdal.
The website where Another Day was put out on September 10 contained links to three download locations: One in England, one in France, and one in Norway.
Yesterday, VG traced the Norwegian server that was owned by the Postal Office's daughter company Ergo Group. The trace to the Norwegian server was attempted concealed in a very professional way. There were no direct links from the page where the album could be downloaded, to the server where the files were actually located.
The whole arrangement was put into a downloading system which hid all traces to the Norwegian company's computer.
VG wasn't successful in obtaining a comment from Lene Marlin herself yesterday.
Translated by Tef Johs
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