The court tussle between record label Ministry of Sound and ISP British Telecom (BT) to reveal the details of alleged music pirates has ended.
The final straw was BT’s revelation that it had routinely deleted the records of 80 percent of the 250,000 names and addresses it had on file. Ministry of Sound decided to cut its losses because it would not be cost-effective to attempt to charge the remaining 5,000 people £350 each.
In September, ISP customer details submitted to ACS:Law were stolen and published online, some of them were BT Plusnet users. Concerned with the privacy issues and the negative publicity that this generated, BT won an adjournment in the case so it could inspect the data security arrangements at Ministry of Sound.
In the meantime, BT’s 90-day retention of data policy came into effect and the data was erased.
“It is very disappointing that BT decided not to preserve the identities of the illegal uploaders,” said Lohan Presencer, CEO of Ministry of Sound. “Given that less than 20 percent of the names remain, and BT costs have soared from a few thousand pounds to several hundred thousand pounds, it makes no economic sense to continue with this application.”
BT has defended its position by arguing that Ministry of Sound knows about BT’s procedures regarding customer records.
“All such information is automatically deleted from our systems after 90 days in accordance with our data retention policy; Ministry of Sound and its solicitors are well aware of this,” BT said in a statement. “Upon request from Ministry of Sound we saved as much of the specific data sought as we reasonably could and any not preserved must have been too old.”
The decision to withdraw the court action has closed an acrimonious affair between the two parties and between Ministry of Sound and the downloading community. The issue flared up during the first visit to the courtrooms. To coincide with the opening of the case, hackers targeted a successful denial of service attack on Ministry of Sound’s website and that of its solicitors Gallant Macmillan.
Presencer has said that he will not let the issue die but will continue to pursue illegal downloaders through their ISPs.
Workforce blow. Newly privatised Toshiba has embarked on a 'revitalisation plan' that will entail the…
European Commission opens an official child safety investigation into Facebook and Instagram-owner Meta Platforms
Hundreds of AI and cloud engineers are being offered relocation out of China by Microsoft,…
Workers at unionised Apple store in Maryland vote to authorise first ever strike, after delays…
Elon Musk loses bid to avoid court order to force him to testify in SEC…
Explore how cutting-edge technologies are reshaping decision-making, driving innovation, and propelling businesses into the data-driven…
View Comments
For heavens sake .. how many times does it have to be said .. it's not the downloading that is the civil offence of file-sharing on bit-torrent sites, it's the MAKING AVAILABLE!!! Something that must happen on bit-torrent in order for it to work.
Say after me ..It's not downloading that brakes copyright .. its the making available.
Also take note .. that file-sharing is NOT theft as the intention is not to "Deprive the owner permanently" as nothing is actually taken!!
Are you trying to brainwash the judiciary into believing this fallacy put about by the recording industry et al? They are so ill informed perhaps it will work.
Further still may I remind you downloading on the internet is not yet a crime or civil offence! Of coarse there are those who would dearly wish it to be so, unless of course they are being paid cash to allow it under their control.
Downloading is not theft because it doesn't permanently remove....?
The item downloaded normally carries a fee attached which would be payable to the provider or the artist. The provider in this case is making freely available something that is not theirs to give and as such this seems true that the downloader is not the criminal.
Since when though, is an individual exempt from blame when they know something is not truly available to them in a legal way? If a man stops you in the street and offers you a genuine watch for 100th of its market value, do you suspect the source of the item? While much less serious, the continuous handling of stolen items in itself is a recognised crime.
However, since we seem to be assuming that only a physical item can be permanently removed therefore no-one loses out, then perhaps someone might explain how the use of an unsecured wireless link can be prosecuted as theft against the person using it without the owner's permission?
Some of the stuff spouted by both sides in this is utter nonsense and I agree those sharing are the primary issue, but anyone taking advantage of someone else's criminal activity should never believe they have a clear conscience. Crime and profiting from the proceeds of a crime.