[Barton71]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

My daughter has VM in Leicester, and it is usually one of the tenants whose name is on the contract, rather than the landlord.

And on this VM T&C page (re your comment about the other "sharers" in the flat/house

"You are responsible for the way the services are used. You must not use the services to do any of the following acts or allow anyone else to use the services to do such acts:

1. Send a message or communication that is offensive, abusive, defamatory (damages someone's reputation), obscene, menacing or illegal;
2. Cause annoyance, nuisance, inconvenience or needless worry to, or break the rights of, any other person;
3. Perform any illegal activity;
4. Break, or try to break, the security of anyone else's equipment, hardware or software;
5. Deliberately receive, use, own, post, transmit or publish obscene material (including, but not limited to, child pornography);
6. Upload, post, publish or transmit any information or software that is protected by copyright or other ownership rights without the permission of its owner;
7. Copy or distribute any software or services we provide (but you may make a backup copy of the software we provide for your personal use); "

and

"You agree to take responsibility for all liabilities, claims and losses which are in any way connected with misusing the services supplied to you under this agreement"

Also, in VM's AUP (section 3)
3.2. You must not use the Services in any way that is unlawful or illegal or in any way to the detriment of other Internet users. You also must not allow anybody using your connection to use the Services in any way that is unlawful or illegal or in any way to the detriment of other Internet users.
3.3. During an investigation, if we believe that a violation of this AUP or our Terms and Conditions has occurred, we may take immediate remedial action. Such action may include temporary or permanent removal of material from our servers, the cancellation of newsgroup postings, warnings to the User responsible, and the suspension, restriction or termination of the User's account. We will determine what action will be taken on a case-by-case basis. Please note that we have a policy of open co-operation with all relevant authorities and regulators.
3.4. In addition to and without prejudice to your obligations pursuant to our Terms and Conditions, you agree to comply with (and ensure that others using the Services comply with) all applicable laws, statutes and regulations in connection with the Services. As the User of record, you are responsible for all use of your account, irrespective of use without your knowledge and/or consent.

Yeah, but that is only VM's terms and conditions, not the law of the land. As the BPI can only provide the IP address to the ISP's, which can only lead to the ISP's finding the name and addess of the account holder, the question remains, is an account holder responsible for what passes through his or her network, or is the account holder, like the ISP's and the Post Office, just a conduit through which the information passes? In other words, is an IP address sufficiant enough evidence to secure a proescution against an individual? If it is, and the BPI are going to use IP addresses as evidence to sue people, then i would argue that the BPI arent interested in suing file sharers, but that they are more interested in the publicity which surrounds suing someone for file sharing, whether that person was actually the person file sharing or not.