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Looks like those pirating porn on O2 are about to get a little more exposure than they bargained for. The broadband arm of the mobile network has been ordered by the High Court to give up the personal details of over 9,000 customers to smut baron Ben Dover, over accusations of porn piracy.
Golden Eye International and Ben Dover Productions, the pseudonym of British porn actor, director and producer Lindsay Honey, were awarded the court order forcing O2 to match IP addresses to personal details. 9,124 IP addresses in total are suspected of copyright infringement, and whose owners can now expect a demand for some sort of settlement sum.
The good news is O2 attempted to do the right thing by customers and fought against bids to release customer details without a court order. In fact the judge presiding over the case rejected 12 out of 13 applications for court orders from the porn producers, but found in favour of one as “the claimants’ interests in enforcing their copyrights outweigh the intended defendants’ interest in protecting their privacy and data protection rights”.
While the 9,000-odd free porn lovers will at least get a nasty note in the post, thankfully this defence and rejection of all but one demand for the release of personal details, has set a precedent against the issue of speculative invoicing by lawyers like ACS:Law. It means there’ll be a greater burden of proof needed from the claimant against the defendant before your details are released to the hounds of Hollywood, as well as the smut barons. Hooray for due process. [The Telegraph]
Image credit: Search from Shutterstock
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Someone actually uses Ben Dover in real life? I know people that work in the industry aren’t known for their genius puns or storylines but even that is a bit lame.
Isn’t there also a “Seymour Butts”?
Erm I wouldn’t have a clue Darrell – you know us boys don’t really know these sorts of things…
I remember a distant acquaintance mentioning it once, obviously I have no personal experience of this sort of material.
Absolutely; the first time I had heard about these things were in (relatively) reputable newspapers.
So this story wasn’t just in the Telegraph then?
So the title of the post begins with ‘Over 9000′ ay. I’m to busy but I’m sure somebody is busy photoshopping a smutty scene with Vegeta in it as we speak. lol
WHAT, 9000?! THERE’S NO WAY THAT CAN BE RIGHT!!
“The good news is O2 attempted to do the right thing by customers and fought against bids to release customer details without a court order.”
This is incorrect, O2 rolled over and just took it like…. well like an actor in once of those films.
From the judgement at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2012/723.html
“In his statement, Mr Becker said that O2 had been put on notice of the claim and had stated through its solicitors (Baker & McKenzie LLP) that it did not oppose the making of the order sought provided that the order was in the terms approved by Baker & McKenzie on O2′s behalf.
and
On 7 October 2011 Baker & McKenzie filed an acknowledgement of service
on behalf of O2 stating that O2 did not intend to contest the claim. On
18 November 2011 the parties were given notice of a disposal hearing
before Chief Master Winegarten on 6 December 2011. On 28 November 2011
Baker & McKenzie wrote to the Chief Master to confirm that O2 did
not oppose the making of an order in the terms submitted by Golden Eye,
and therefore did not intend to attend the hearing.”
Somehow I doubt that the stock image has that pic on the laptop.
Checked it, yeah, I didn’t think so.
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