Virgin to pass on details of porn downloading customers

[Qtx]

TorrentFreak has learned that several porn companies have teamed up to target alleged file-sharers in the UK. ISP Virgin Media has been ordered by the High Court to hand over the personal details of around 800 subscribers. Lawfirm Wagner & Co, which handled previous cases for copyright troll GoldenEye, is handling the case.

Linky @TorrentFreak

Worth noting that anyone who ignored their demands in the past were not taken to court, although no one can suggest ignoring the letters for legal reasons.

[pabscars]

Well spank my monkey and call me Ethel, I didn't see that coming 😃

[qasdfdsaq]

Details of 800 subscribers to Virgin or 800 subscribers to the porn sites?

Also this specifically mentions a court order, not just the standard letter-sending practices, which do not require a court order...

[alanbjames]

So they have asked Virgin Media for members who are torrent freak members who have been downloading the torrents?

[Qtx]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Details of 800 subscribers to Virgin or 800 subscribers to the porn sites?

Also this specifically mentions a court order, not just the standard letter-sending practices, which do not require a court order...

Virgin Media has to give out the names and addresses of 800 of it's customers because the court has said they must.

Previously the Porn companies involved only had an IP address which they were unable to identify anyone by, except for what ISP they used. So they took VM to court to get their customers detail, so they knew who had the infringing IP at the time of the so called porn downloading offence.

Should have been obvious from the article tbh.

---------- Post added at 14:14 ---------- Previous post was at 14:12 ----------

Originally Posted by alanbjames

So they have asked Virgin Media for members who are torrent freak members who have been downloading the torrents?

No, Torrentfreak is just a news site. One would assume the porn was downloaded via torrents, which is where they saw the VM customers IP address to begin with.

[Skie]

The internet is for porn

[Kushan]

Good luck to them. The IP address may identify the subscriber of the account, but it does not identify the person who downloaded anything.

[alanbjames]

Kushan, around the time of the letters being sent out from VM stating they are breaching copyright a friend of mine who is no longer alive received a letter stating he had downloaded hardcore adult material and the guy was 87 years old and had a laptop to keep in touch with family in London and was also an active member of a group who would put pressure on the local councils to get things done such as repairs to roads and so on.

Turned out his son who was apparently "a computer expert" fitted the wireless router for him and only used WPA security with a password that was 4 letters long.

When i logged into the router there were 5 devices connected to his connection and his laptop was turned off.

Like last time i think unless they get evidence in the way of confiscating computer equipment and looking at the material on the drives which would probably require some sort of court order, by that time the guilty party could have changed the hard drive and hidden the other one etc.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by alanbjames

...by that time the guilty party could have changed the hard drive and hidden the other one etc.

Or died, like your friend did.

[Sirius]

Bet you now that all of these ip's will be from public trackers. When will people learn you never use public trackers and instead only use private trackers. Best option is to make sure your also using a VPN so that the company working for the blood sucking lawyers cannot get your ip in the first place.

[Ignitionnet]

Another option is, of course, to not download the stuff via torrents in the first place but use legitimate distribution mechanisms.

That's pretty effective too

[Kushan]

You mean newsgroups, right?

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Kushan

You mean newsgroups, right?

Hah!

I have no idea why people would be wanting to download porn via any illegitimate method when there's more than enough free streaming sites online to bust nuts over or to get yourself and the significant other warmed up.

Usenet has become increasingly centralised as the demands of running it go ever higher and with the advent of DCMA takedowns is becoming less and less valuable. Ultra-high bandwidth binary Usenet is probably living on borrowed time and people really need to be aware that their EU hosted services will be in strife should the EU sign the TTIP with the USA.

Can't say I'll be sorry to see it go.

[alanbjames]

I have only ever downloaded 2 torrents in all the time i have been on the internet.

A friend introduced me to linux so i downloaded redhat and didn't like it so i downloaded ubuntu instead and got on much better. Infact its still on my old PC i don't use now.

My son and his boyfriend i also know does not download from newsgroups, torrents or peer to peer because my sons boyfriends dad was caught and had a large fine and computer equipment confiscated.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

I have no idea why people would be wanting to download porn via any illegitimate method when there's more than enough free streaming sites online to bust nuts over or to get yourself and the significant other warmed up.

Quality... not many of those 'free' sites are equipped with decent 1080p or even 4K recording equipment