Posted: 25th Jan, 2008 By: MarkJ
Popular Entanet ISP, the
UK Free Software Network Ltd (UKFSN), reports that their supplier has been served with a court order to reveal the contact details of a number of their customers who are alleged to have been involved in distributing copyright materials - specifically PC game "
Two Worlds".
It's suspected that the notice, which originated from supplier Entanet after they themselves were issued with the court order by solicitors
Davenport Lyons, may have been sent to several other Entanet vISP's and different ISPs too. The full post can be found on
Thinkbroadband's forum (
here):
UKFSN's Jason Clifford: The notice specifies that a firm of solicitors called Davenport Lyons will be making a mass mailing shot to all those whose details have been disclosed in accordance with the court order.
Note that Entanet had no choice but to reveal these details in accordance with the orders of the court and that their policy remains that they will only ever disclose such details where required to by court order or in compliance with a properly served RIPA notice from the police. Customer details are never otherwise disclosed.
Anyone who is using p2p or similar services that distribute copyright materials for which you do not have a license should be aware that a number of copyright holders (or organisations representing groups of them) are now moving towards threats of legal action and that ISPs are required under law to co-operate with court orders for disclosure.
I have already notified all UKFSN customers who are affected by this specific incident.
Typically if the solicitors firm, Davenport Lyons, sounds familiar then that's because it is. Lyons has already represented similar cases in the past (
March 2007 news) and the current issue is believed to be related to this more recent news from
Torrent Freak:
Lawyers Davenport Lyons are fast becoming a thorn in the side of alleged UK file-sharers. Having cut their teeth threatening alleged sharers of Dream Pinball, they more recently moved on to those alleged to have shared Colin McRae Dirt.
Now they have obtained a court order to force ISPs (Be Un, BT, Easynet, Eclipse, Entanet, Eurisp, Fasthosts, Kcom, Opal,
Orange,
Pipex,
Plusnet, Supanet, TalkTalk, Thus and Tiscali) to reveal the names and addresses behind an unspecified number of IP addresses alleged to have shared the game Two Worlds from publisher Reality Pump. Reality Pump are linked with Zuxxez, publishers of Dream Pinball.
This kind of enforcement is sadly nothing new and we can expect to see more of it in the future. Meanwhile it's worth remembering that the illegal sharing of copyright material over P2P is breaking the law and taking part in such activity will always carry a significant risk.