Torrents

[TaxedAndConfused]

Hi,

 

Before I ask my question, a disclaimer - I do not condone people downloading stuff they don't have a right to such as copyrighted material and so on.

 

Now then. Does anyone know of a company which is currently extracting payments out of people in the UK for downloading copyrighted material ? Someone I know suggests this is happening and has seen some letters but I can't find any cases or people asking this elsewhere, so I wondered.

 

Also under UK law, what would they need to prove before they could win a case in court if someone decided to resist ?

 

Cheers

 

T&C

[Guest vortex]

At the moment there is legislation proposed through the UK Parliament. A recent EU ourt case has stated that an ISP cannot tell the company the name of that person due to data protection laws.

I have to say that is as much as I know. There have been people in the US and also people connected to the oweners of a torrent site arrested in Sweden.

[TaxedAndConfused]

To clarify - what was suggested was that a company (or companies) was (were - oh stuff it) using the IP addresses to identify people downloading material and then getting the agreement of the copyright holder to go after the downloader - and splitting the "takings".

 

Anyone heard anything ?

[Guest vortex]

The answer is no, the ISP would be in breach of the DPA I believe.

[Conniff]

A court case somewhere I remember said that the downloader was not doing anything wrong, it was the uploader who was breaking the copyright laws.

[honey5]

oh dear the world of torrents and isps huh

your massive and i mean massive uploaders are the ones they the "authorities that be" are looking to catch, you can actually copy anything you like onto your hdd as long as its for your OWN personal use

i make backup disks of everthing i BUY

honey x

[TaxedAndConfused]

A court case somewhere I remember said that the downloader was not doing anything wrong, it was the uploader who was breaking the copyright laws.

 

I kind of thought this too. I can call any file I like on my PC "Shrek The Third" and share it. But someone coming after me would need to download it all to ensure it was actually the copyrighted material.

 

Then I remembered that BitTorrent splits a download into lots of pieces, and as soon as my PC has downloaded a piece it then shares that piece with others - i.e. you become an uploader as soon as you have downloaded, no ?

 

...your massive and i mean massive uploaders are the ones they the "authorities that be" are looking to catch

 

The impression I got was that the company concerned was chasing small-fry a little like the way DCAs do - promising doom, loss of home, court etc. just to extract some quid and then, to give it some legitimacy, sharing some of the cash with the copyright holder.

 

I shall do some more digging.

[honey5]

you mean something along these lines

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/broadband-other-internet-issues/127625-isps-releasing-personal-information.html

 

honey x

[Holdred]

you mean something along these lines

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/broadband-other-internet-issues/127625-isps-releasing-personal-information.html

 

honey x

 

And this might be worth a read too..

 

Codemasters sets legal dogs on file-sharers | The Register

[TaxedAndConfused]

Claims come from here, apparently.

 

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