Filesharing the battle continues

19 November 2008

By Michael Coyle

Porn gets in on the act. P2P File sharing lawyers instructed by Porn Companies Courtesy of the consistently excellent Torrent Freak it has been reported this week that lawyers have widened the targets for the alleged downloading of copyright works by targeting users of hard core pornography.

The German rights holder is a company called DigiProtect. The latter seems to have acquired the rights to US porn company Evil Angel™. Digiprotect sought an Order http://www.digiprotect.org/html/hc_london_300608.html forcing the ISP to release the information. The High Court duly obliged and letters were sent over. Lawdit was contacted by numerous individuals all accused of illegally file sharing and downloading hard core gay porn.

Advice

The advice remains the same as before, If you receive a letter:- (1) Do not panic. But please do not ignore. (2) If you have downloaded the file, there are serious questions that ought to be asked regarding the amount claimed. There seems no reason why should be paying £500 - £750 + VAT for a game/movie/song which costs 20 Euros. So you may want to send a cheque in the sum of £20 + VAT politely refusing to sign the undertaking but agreeing not to download any more files. (3) If YOU have not downloaded the product, then do not pay anything. The Lawyers will have to prove you downloaded the file sharing software in court. It is most unlikely that they will issue a claim. So why pay when you have done nothing wrong.

Michael Coyle is a Solicitor Advocate who specialises in information technology law and intellectual property law. He can be contacted on michael.coyle@lawdit.co.uk, his office number +44 (0) 2380 235979 or mobile 07976 724258