UK High Court Orders ISPs to Identify File-sharers

securitas writes "The BBC reports that the British High Court has ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) to divulge the identities of 28 customers accused of music file-sharing to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the UK equivalent of the RIAA. The court order issued by Mr Justice Blackburne is a big victory for the BPI and its umbrella oranization, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), especially after recent setbacks in Canada (CRIA) and the USA. Blackburne is quoted as saying, 'On the face of it this appears to be a powerful case of copyright infringement.' The ISPs have 14 days to comply with the court order. More coverage at the Guardian/Reuters and the Register."

Comments

ISPs here assured me file sharing is fine!

[PtrToNull]

When I signed up for my 512 kb/s ADSL in Kuwait, I asked the ISP salesman specifically if I might have any problems with file sharing.

He said it's perfectly fine with the compnay policies, and even suggested a few P2P clients that he liked!

Why KEEP records?

[WCMI92]

It seems to me that keeping detailed logs of your users is just a big legal headache.

One of my clients was once interested in installing detailed internet monitoring and logging (so as to see who is wasting time on the web). They lost interest rapidly when I pointed out that they could be compelled to provide it in court should someone sue.

SurfControl and the other Big Brother ware makers never include that in the copy.

Here's what I'd do: You need to keep certain logs so you can know if there is an intrusion, DoS, etc, but program your logs to automatically erase every week. That means that there will never be more than THE CURRENT WEEK's worth of data that could be subpoened.

Of course, I'm sure if ISP's start doing THAT the RIAA will just get Congress to pass laws that make us all retain ALL logs for all time...