Pro-Piracy Move In The UK
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20360914

16 November 2012 Last updated at 11:32 ET
Help wanted on O2 porn piracy cases

A digital rights group is seeking financial help to stop an adult film-maker contacting Britons suspected of pirating pornographic movies.

The Digital Rights Group has applied to intervene in a legal battle between O2 and Golden Eye International.

In 2011, Golden Eye started legal action to make O2 reveal the names of about 9,000 suspected porn pirates.

A successful court challenge meant it only got details on 2,845 people and now it wants to pursue the others.

The UK's Consumer Focus group intervened in the original case saying the adult film-maker had no grounds to pursue 6,155 of them as they were suspected of pirating films for which Golden Eye did not hold the copyright.

The Consumer Focus intervention also changed the wording of letters sent out to suspected pirates to make it clear what penalties people faced. In the letters sent to suspected pirates, Golden Eye said payment of a settlement fee would head off a potential court case.

Golden Eye has now gone to court to get personal details of the 6,155 people released by O2. The Open Rights Group (ORG) has applied to intervene to stop this.

The ORG said it wanted to intervene because Golden Eye had no specific mandate from the 12 other porn studios whose works are believed to have been pirated. Instead, it said, Golden Eye had an "enforcement only" licence which would see it hand over 25% of the cash it got from those it contacted to the studios. Golden Eye would keep the remaining cash.

The ORG has appealed for cash to help pay £5,000 for legal fees and mount the court challenge. If it successfully intervened, said the ORG, O2 would not have to have over any names and future schemes that try to get cash from suspected pirates may be shelved.

Golden Eye has yet to comment on the case and the ORG's intervention.

Interesting.

We recently saw a US judge rule against wide ranging John Doe actions. I do not believe that wide ranging poorly targeted actions help the anti piracy cause.

I would like to see the range of possible criminal sanctions against downloaders of infringing content toughened. When people start going to jail for theft it will send a clear message.

Pro-piracy? Try anti-shakedown.

You call suing people who have illegally downloaded infringing content a shake down ?

Interesting.

Properly targeted there is nothing wrong with suing large groups of people for infringing the rights of others, the only problem thus far has been that many of these lawsuits have been poorly targeted.

Interesting...

I don't see this suddenly being more targeted then possibly an IP address,
and thus a shake down could be said to be correct.

I have issue with sueing large groups of people in one claim, doing so has a history of being a little shady ...

I do how ever see you not being able to step back and see that the "shake down" sentiment comes down to exactly what you said in the post before it..

"I do not believe that wide ranging poorly targeted actions help the anti piracy cause."

I guess you are so anti piracy that you are the only one able to have issue with some of the ways people are going about fighting it.

There are ways to better target infringers and we are working on developing them along with legal strategies to back them up.


Multi-party lawsuits are not the problem, the problem is that at the moment too many very poorly targeted blanket actions are being run through the courts.

I have no tolerance for the anti piracy methods that involve suing thousands of people based on nothing more than an IP address, it's sloppy. There needs to be more identifying information on the offender gathered by litigants before they sue - however if properly targeted I see no problem with multi-party actions

My statement was self apparent, I clearly said that I do not believe that wide ranging poorly targeted actions help the anti piracy cause. However I have no issue with very well targeted multi-party actions.

Here's an example. A website is seized which has 1,000 members. Each member had paid for access. After forensic examination of all user data it is determined that 850 members had used an identifiable method of payment. 750 of those members was able to be identified by several data points contained within the user database of the website. A pattern of usage of each the 750 members was able to be verified.

Is it then wrong to sue the 750 identified members who downloaded infringing content ? I think not and this is an example of the types of cases that should be run, not the sloppy ill conceived cases currently making it before the courts.

And yet you state the accused people are guilty:

You mean like

Sounds just a little like a cash grab in this case,.. no?

I said no such thing, you really should work on your comprehension skills. You also, as you so often do, selectively quoted me, forgetting to include:

If you want to debate an issue, go ahead but stop trying to manipulate what people have said in order to fit in with your point of view.

You don't seem to understand what you're posting, so here it is again:

"people who have illegally downloaded infringing content"

Why should I include something I'm not replying to?

Would be easier if you just accepted you worded your post badly, rather than try to claim you didn't say it.

Very selective quoting now.

What i asked was

I did not say that the people mentioned in the OP's article were guilty, you said I said that but I said no such thing.

No, he calls sending blackmail letters to people when you have no actual evidence they committed a crime a shakedown. As do I. As does the courts here. And in America.

I talked to a guy that is a connector in the industry on the phone 6 months back, he mentioned several lawyers coming out of nowhere and looking to connect with studios/producers afflicted with mass piracy.

They simply started suing Jon's en masse, that's what I call opportunism.

I honestly don't understand why you're not getting this. I was obviously talking about the OP's post, since I specifically replied to it, so I was obviously talking about the people who were targeted by this company (and companies like it). And you specifically referred to what I was talking about.

If you weren't talking about the people in this case, the subject of this very thread, that I was referring to, then who do you imagine you were talking about?

Well if you think he is selectively Quoting you etc, then why not simply reply to what I said and quoted.. As he and I are pointing out the same thing.

In the end people reading the OP read it as a cash grab / shakedown.
But it seems that should someone make any sort of piracy thread that it should be all about you...

In all honesty anti-piracy threads are somewhat laughable on GFY when you see the very host of the sites stealing content (adult and other wise) posting threads here and throwing parties at conventions....

But that's a thread for another day...