UK ISPs To Hand Over Thousands of File Sharers' Data

Death Metal Maniac sends along a link from TorrentFreak on the latest development in game developer Topwear's battle against file sharers in the UK. "US game developer Topware Interactive, the people behind the now infamous Dream Pinball affair, are about to turn up the heat. Operating through London lawyers Davenport Lyons, they have managed to convince the High Court to send out an order demanding that ISPs in the UK start to hand over the details of several thousand alleged pirates ... BT, one of the UK's largest ISPs ..., confirmed it had been ordered to hand over details of alleged copyright infringing file-sharers ... Virgin Media was a little more slippery in its response but reading between the lines it seems obvious they are involved too."

Comments

Hard to pin down

[gotw]

IANAL, but consider that the majority of BTs home DSL equipment ships with WEP, often 40 bit WEP, enabled by default. Would this in itself be grounds enough to plausibly deny that the traffic came from the person paying for the box? Not to mention she sheer, massive, embarrassing level of negligence on the part of BT.

Re:Hard to pin down

[gotw]

I'm not accusing BT of negligence for not catching the pirates. I'm accusing BT of negligence because they are supplying their users with broken, easily compromised security when much better alternatives are available using the exact same hardware.

Re:Hard to pin down

[You ain't seen me!]

According to them that's no excuse. You're responsible for your own equipment.

When you receive broadband equipment under a contract, you are told in the small print that the equipment remains the property of the ISP - they can't have it both ways.

I can't wait

[WormholeFiend]

for everyone to panic when the authorities start looking at online data storage services...

Re:Land of the free

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, in the US, the ISPs are free to hand over that data without bothering the court.

And if the FISA debacle has taught us anything, it's that they're more than happy to hand over data without worrying about minor little details like "due process."

Fortunately there's an election coming up, and you can vote for change! Wait, both sides claim they're for change? And both sides support warrantless wiretaps and telecom immunity?

Well, damn. If only there were another option, a third option...

Dear media companies

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop trying to sell single TV episodes for $2. If the price was $0.25 or $0.50 to rent it (i.e. view it once or twice, delete 48 hours after first viewing), I'd be a huge customer.

Stop trying to sell downloadable versions of movies for the same price as a DVD. If I purchase and download a movie, it's already costing me my limited monthly bandwidth and hard drive space that I paid for. If the movie sells for $20 on DVD, sell the downloadable version for $10. After all, I'm missing the extras, too.

Stop limiting sales to a single country, the internet is world-wide. I don't care who owns what and who's under exclusive contrats with which stations. It's your mess, figure it out.

Stop trying to put DRM which limit the usefulness of the media we want to buy. I don't want to watch movies and TV shows on my computer and I don't want to be tied to Microsoft-only hardware/software.

Do people want your content? Yes, otherwise they wouldn't pirate it. Do people want to pay for your content? Yes, if the price, format and limits are reasonable. Find the balance and it'll work itself out.

I, for one, won't bother with P2P and torrents if it only cost $0.99 for a tune I want. It's easier and faster to buy it from the iTunes Music Store. Their TV shows and movies, however, are too expensive.

Sir Alan Sugar should be arrested at once!

[Joce640k]

Alan Sugar got rich by making a HiFi with twin cassette units. If you didn't have one yourself, you knew somebody who did. Suddenly *everybody* could copy tapes easily (and at double speed!)

Home taping was rampant. I knew people with tens of thousands of tapes in their room.

The record business didn't die then, in fact their boom years came long afterwards.

How come Alan Sugar got a knighthood but these days we're throwing away all due process over the exact same "crime".

Re:no

[bigstrat2003]

democrats are not supporting it.

Obama's vote in the Senate record suggests otherwise.

but obama and his group had to vote for the bill...

The claim of cowards and liars throughout history. Obama voted for telecom immunity, and has shown what sort of man he is. Sad that you're too taken in by his lies to realize it.