News - 2,845 O2 porno downloaders will be asked to Ben Dover

[HEXUS]

A letter will be sent to you asking you to admit being naughty.

Read more.

[kalniel]

It's uploaders, technically.

[watercooled]

There's seriously a company named after a school joke?

Anyway, how do they actually find out who's 'guilty'? It doesn't sound like O2 were directly involved and I can't see Torrent websites sharing anything. Do they just get someone to find related torrents and see who's seeding it?

[Jonj1611]

From what I seem to remember, a lot of these companies set up their own seeds and then captured the IP of people downloading/uploading. It's why there use to be black lists of IP addresses known to be doing things like that, either government or private companies etc.

[neonplanet40]

Aren't they technically providing it themselves then which could be regarded as free if they are happy to upload it for people to leech?

[b0redom]

I would imagine that they either post join existing torrents or seed their own. They are allowed to distribute their content in any way they deem fit, so they're not breaking copyright laws. As soon as anyone else does it becomes copyright infringement.

[OilSheikh]

Nice title. lol. Btw, where's the rest of the pic ?

Someone downloading this kind of stuff deserves to be fined.

[GaryRW]

shouldn't the title of the article be alleged downloaders

[neonplanet40]

But if they are seeding it on a site where everything else is free and they provide no links stating that it needs to be paid for then are they not essentially providing it for free? if there is no prompt to pay before you hit their seed link then how can it be copyright infringement? Just curious.

[MrNeil]

They should of had better protection then

[matts-uk]

But if they are seeding it on a site where everything else is free and they provide no links stating that it needs to be paid for then are they not essentially providing it for free?

It is a very grey area of the law.

The letter emphasises that the burden of proof is not as rigorous in a civil court as in a criminal court. At this stage a judge has decided that the letters can be sent. Until one of the unfortunate recipients ends up in a courtroom, what might prove an effective defence is largely speculation.