Virgin to pass on details of porn downloading customers

Is this like the Davenport Lyons fiasco?

[Kushan]

Probably not far off. Be interesting to see what they do with the information from Virgin, if anything.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Kushan

What's "clearly" stated? Nowhere in the law does it state that the bill payer is liable for the actions of someone using their connection. An IP address is not a person. It's illegal to pirate stuff, sure, but that does not mean that an IP address caught in a torrent is proof of the bill payer being the pirate. To my knowledge, this has never been the case and no court has convicted the bill payer purely on an IP address alone.

That doesn't stop these companies sending threatening letters hoping for out of court settlements, but again to my knowledge, nobody that has ever challenged them has ever been found guilty in court. Tell them to go away and they will, because the legal ground is extremely shaky.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sh...United_Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital...al_measures.29

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sh...United_Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital...al_measures.29

Nothing in either link says the bill payer is liable for copyright infringement. They may be notified, they may have their connection slowed or disconnected but nothing there says anything about unequivocally being liable. By all means quote the part that I must be missing.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Is this like the Davenport Lyons fiasco?

If it is then one would hope it goes the same why, down the plug hole.

Ridiculous that they can punt this way..All it needs is for someone to really get the hump and meet them in court.Case dismissed especially if it's some grey haired old granny..

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Kushan

Nothing in either link says the bill payer is liable for copyright infringement. They may be notified, they may have their connection slowed or disconnected but nothing there says anything about unequivocally being liable. By all means quote the part that I must be missing.

So they are liable to being punished for it but not liable to err... what?. Logic goes where?

Regardless:

(1)This section applies if it appears to a copyright owner that—

(a)a subscriber to an internet access service has infringed the owner's copyright by means of the service; or

(b)a subscriber to an internet access service has allowed another person to use the service, and that other person has infringed the owner's copyright by means of the service.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

So they are liable to being punished for it but not liable to err... what?. Logic goes where?

Regardless:

(1)This section applies if it appears to a copyright owner that—

(a)a subscriber to an internet access service has infringed the owner's copyright by means of the service; or

(b)a subscriber to an internet access service has allowed another person to use the service, and that other person has infringed the owner's copyright by means of the service.

Honest question here, how can you have allowed some one if they have hacked your wifi overnight ?

Originally Posted by Sirius

Honest question here, how can you have allowed some one if they have hacked your wifi overnight ?

What, and sat outside on your step amusing themselves?

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Hugh

What, and sat outside on your step amusing themselves?

Or next door

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

So they are liable to being punished for it but not liable to err... what?. Logic goes where?

In this instance, "liable" is a legal term and specifically refers to their legal liability.

In law, a person is legally liable when they are financially and legally responsible for something.

This is the crux of the matter, they may be the owner of the connection that infringed copyright but that alone does not make you (legally) liable for what someone does on it. The bill you're quoting from focuses on educating the owner, to ensure that they're aware that the infringement is taking place - not so that they can be taken to court. As others have pointed out, leaving your wireless unsecured or having someone break in (say via a widely reported flaw in WPS...) shouldn't mean you are (again, legally) liable for what they've done. If someone steals your car, you aren't responsible for them running over an old lady, but you will be notified that it was involved in an accident. See?

The logic is fine, it's your misunderstanding of what being legally liable actually means.

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Regardless:

I find it highly amusing that you're quoting this, yet that text does not actually appear in either wikipedia link you supplied. I had to google it and, of course, it's from the Digital Economy bill itself. However, unsurprisingly you've cut and paste only part of the story. "This Section" refers to section 12A, which is titled "Obligation to notify subscribers of copyright infringement reports".
Again, nothing there states that they are legally liable, they are simply being notified that infringement has taken place according to a copyright holder.

I'm going to pre-empt the next thing you'll quote:

following such a disclosure, the copyright owner may apply to


a court to learn the subscriber’s identity and may bring


5

proceedings against the subscriber for copyright infringement

This is really the bit that matters, as it applies to the topic post. However note that the bill is only in relation to the ISP supplying details to the copyright holder, it in no way specifies who is actually (Once more: legally) liable for the infringement that took place. They still have to prove that the owner is responsible in court and to my knowledge, this hasn't been tested properly in the UK yet.