UK ISPs demand piracy compensation from customers
The demands follow a court order from a law firm on behalf of an American copyright holder
A law firm is demanding compensation for online piracy from customers of several UK broadband ISPs, including Virgin Media.
The notices, sent by law firm Lewis Silkin LLP on behalf of American company Voltage Holdings, accused the recipients of illegally downloading or sharing the film Ava, which was released last year. Voltage Holdings owns the copyright for the film.
Recipients had the opportunity to 'admit or deny' that their broadband account was used to download or share the content via BitTorrent.
'This letter assumes that you, as the account holder for the infringing IP Address, were the user of the relevant device on the dates and times at which Ava was shared without the consent of VOLTAGE,' the letter reads.
It explains that the 'file-sharing is unlawful' and therefore Voltage Holdings is entitled to bring court proceedings against online pirates.
The letter also says that Voltage Holdings is using the services of a 'forensic computer analyst' who specialises in tracking piracy on peer-to-peer networks, in this case BitTorrent. The analyst allegedly provided the user's IP address to Voltage, which then received a court order forcing Virgin Media to hand over the customer's personal details relating to a specific IP at a specific time.
The notice asks recipients to pay a fee to the filmmaker as part of the extrajudicial settlement or face legal action, which will demand more compensation.
Virgin Media admitted that it provided the information of a small number of customers to Voltage Holdings, following a court order.
It added that the company will 'only ever disclose customer information to third parties if required by law to do so through a valid court order'.
'Any customers who receive a letter should note that the court has not yet made any findings of copyright infringement against them. This would be a matter to be determined by the court in any subsequent claim.'
The practice of sending letters to people who allegedly downloaded illegal content is a bit controversial as such cases rarely reach the court. A legal challenge would rely on evidence based on an IP address, which cannot considered a reliable means of identifying an individual because a broadband service is often shared among family members, friends, and visitors via a local WiFi network.
Online piracy is a significant challenge for content streaming platforms and film production houses worldwide.
To mitigate video piracy, last year Amazon developed a new way to identify subscribers who make duplicates of its copyrighted content and leak it on the web. It is only a patent at the moment, so might never actually see use (Apple has thousands of unused patents), but effectively describes an invisible mark that identifies the content and owner - even if it's recorded with a camera from a screen.