“Cleveland police have charged Alan Ellis, the former administrator of the defunct BitTorrent tracker site OiNK.cd, with conspiracy to defraud the record industry.
Ellis, a 25-year-old IT worker, will face magistrates at a committal hearing on 24 September, a police spokeswoman said today. Five individuals who were arrested in June for uploading music torrents to OiNK will also appear to answer charges of criminal copyright infringement.
All the alleged offences could carry prison sentences.”
Continues at The Register
“A British woman who put a game on a file-sharing network has been ordered to pay damages to the game’s creator. Topware Interactive has won more than £16,000 following legal action against Isabella Barwinska of London, who shared a copy of Dream Pinball 3D. Three other suspected sharers of the game are awaiting damages hearings.
The test case could open the floodgates for litigation against thousands of other Britons suspected of sharing the game. In the case heard at London’s Patents County Court the game maker won damages of £6,086.56 plus costs of £10,000.”
BBC technology news
Lawyers Davenport Lyons acted for Topware interactive.
‘David Gore, a partner at Davenport Lyons, said: “Illegal file-sharing is a very serious issue resulting in millions of pounds of losses to copyright owners. As downloading speeds and Internet penetration increase, this continues to be a worldwide problem across the media industry which increasingly relies on digital revenues.”
“The damages and costs ordered by the Court are significant and should act as a deterrent. This shows that taking direct steps against infringers is an important and effective weapon in the battle against online piracy.”
Davenport Lyons said it already has thousands of names and addresses obtained from ISPs of people it suspects of sharing games, music and films. Another application still before the courts is for 7,000 IP addresses.’
Continues at The Register
“Davenport Lyons have a High Court order demanding 25,000 UK ISP subscribers’ names and addresses, it emerged today. Davenport Lyons will send letters to the addresses it obtains demanding £300 to avoid a potentially costly court battle… customers of Be Unlimited, BT, Easynet (Sky), Entanet, KCom (Karoo and Eclipse) Orange, Plusnet, Thus (Demon) and Tiscali were all fingered for filesharing in an application for personal details granted by the High Court on 30 June. IP addresses were seen participating in peer-to-peer networks sharing copyright material.
The application to identify the subscribers was granted on grounds there was “prima facie case that each of the subscribers associated with the IP addresses… have copied the Applicant’s work(s) on to his or her personal or office Computer without the [rights holder’s] permission for the purpose of making it available via file sharing”.
Failure to meet the demands would put the ISPs in contempt of court and liable to prosecution.”
Continues at The Register