James Delahunty
1 Feb 2006 9:14
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has sued many file sharers in the UK that it accuses of uploading copyrighted music on P2P networks. Now it's the software industry's turn to begin litigation against file sharers. Ten Internet service providers have been ordered by a court to hand over personal information on 150 consumers that are suspected of sharing pirated software online. The ISPs include BT, NTL, Telewest and Tiscali.
This follows a twelve month investigation by the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST). An investigator working for FAST on "Operation Tracker" identified the 150 suspects by little more than IP addresses they were assigned by their ISPs. To get the real subscriber information, FAST had to turn to the High Court. To set an example, once it has received the information, it will hand it over to the police and Crown Prosecution Service.
"We can easily take down links, but this does not tackle the root causes of software piracy, because the links will reappear elsewhere in a matter of hours," said John Lovelock, director general at Fast. "Instead, we plan to take action a lot further, making an example of the perpetrators to stop them from stealing and passing on the intellectual property of our members for good." Penalties for this crime include up to two years in prison and/or an unlimited fine.
Source:
BBC News