Virgin Punished for Stealing
Virgin said Tuesday that it had been found guilty of downloading and reselling a Madonna hit without permission.The store’s online portal, virginmega.fr, was ordered by the Paris Tribunal de Commerce to pay €600,000, or $754,000, in damages for downloading the Madonna song Hung Up from a France Télécom Web site that had exclusive rights to distribute the song for one week.
“This is an amazing case of simple piracy by a respected company,” Hervé Payan, senior vice president for content partnership and service at France Télécom, said Tuesday. “Virgin behaved in a surreal manner by downloading the song, cracking protection measures and then selling it from their own Web site.”
The €600,000 Virgin was ordered to pay includes €100,000 to Warner Music for counterfeiting the music and €1 in damages, as well as €250,000 in damages each to France Télécom and its mobile services unit, Orange.
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