Comments on: File Sharing Letters

By: More Record Breaking Streaming and the Latest iPlayer News | Community Site News

Thu, 14 May 2009 12:47:11 +0000

[...] like iPlayer and 4OD are turning customers away from P2P downloads, or it could be stories like the filesharing letters or the proposed three strikes policy that is changing peoples’ [...]

By: Caz

Caz — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:58:44 +0000

I can understand why Plusnet and other ISP's have to give out our details when a court order is produced. Especially when it's to deter anti piracy....or ...not ??

http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-lawyers-start-protecting-gay-gestapo-porn-081118/

By: Enta.net launches opinionated community site | Community Site News

Enta.net launches opinionated community site | Community Site News — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:36:03 +0000

[...] a bit of time and space on news programs and in papers. It’s nice to see enta sharing the stance we’ve taken on the same [...]

By: richard byrne

richard byrne — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:11:50 +0000

ISP's can be forced to give out customer details in civil cases. See Polydor v. Brown [2005] EWHC 3191 (Ch). This case involved the uploading of music files. The claimants used a Norwich Pharmacal order to identify the uploader.

By: Ricky

Ricky — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:37:56 +0000

I thought ISPs only gave out their customers details on criminal cases, not civil ones?

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:27:21 +0000

In all cases like this for us to supply any information the requests must come from a court and are all properly checked by our legal team to make sure that all the necessary legal procedures, whether it's because of the precedent Peter Fairbrother quotes above or something else that's job of the legal folks to verify, who will once they are satisified either say to us to release the details or not.

We will receive requests from other parties other than courts (we have for example received requests direct from the MPAA and RIAA) but in these cases we don't release information.

By: Spiro

Spiro — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:25:57 +0000

Dave, I am doubtful about what you say about the law here:
"Amongst its powers under RIPA, the High Court can request from an ISP details about particular customers."

I am rather familiar with RIPA and I know of no such power. Can you clarify the exact part of the Act to which you are referring? Or are you only going by what Davenport L:yons told you?

Also:
"We have recently been requested to provide such details as part of an investigation by the game publisher Codemasters." How did this request reach you and what was the wording? Was it direct from the court, or from the law firm? If the latter, how did the law firm demonstrate to you that they had obtained a court order?

By: Peter Fairbrother

Peter Fairbrother — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:48:58 +0000

This has nothing whatsoever to do with RIPA.

The precedent comes from Norwich Pharmacal Co. v The Commissioners of Customs and Excise http://www.ipo.gov.uk/mcps/norwich.htm (thanks to Nicholas Bohm for the ref)

-- Peter Fairbrother

By: Geoff

Geoff — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:27:30 +0000

Just my 2p worth.
An early point was made about the correlation of download traffic increasing just after popular shows are aired in US. At one point earlier this year epsiodes of Season3 Lost were being shown in UK about a week behind the US airdate. The assumption then is that an immediately downloaded copy via the ISP is without copyright owner's permission. If I wait a week and record the UK broadcast on a standalone DVD recorder off-air, is this copy with or without permission? The program content hasn't changed but the delivery vehicle is different. Imagine the scale of this activity, there are millions of potential criminals worldwide recording copyright material for convenient playback so how and when does a copy of a program become illegal?
Can the RIAA/MPAA and the like explain this first please?

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 13:39:17 +0000

Tom, I'm not a legal expert so for obvious reasons I'm not going to go into great detail about the specifics but regarding the article that you link I think that at the moment this quote is key:

"This Opinion needs to be studied further, but it is clear it would not prevent EU member states permitting the disclosure of data on copyright infringers in civil cases," said the IFPI's spokesperson.

i.e. at the moment it's an opinion rather than policy or law.

In each and every case where a court requests details about our customers we ensure that our legal representatives evaluate the requests and make a decision as to what we can do.

I might be wrong in this but I'm thinking of one parallel you can draw from the letters and that is of a plea bargain. The individual can contest the allegation if they wish but potential of losing could be more costly.

Another parallel may be speed cameras. If you're caught speeding the police can look up the owner the car and send them a letter requesting identification of the driver and a fine for the offence. Of course the owner of the car isn't necessarily the person that was driving at the time, similarly the person who actually downloaded a file (assuming the file was downloaded which it may not be) isn't necessarily the account holder. Amd of course you have the chance to plead not guilty to the speeding offense and attend the court if you wish.