Thursday 22 May 2014

Golden Eye and similar episodes: any further news?

Both this weblog (here) and the IPKat (here and here) have previously posted items on the Golden Eye saga, where an attempt was made to recover not insubstantial amounts of money from the recipients of letters which informed them that they had been indulging in unauthorised peer-to-peer file-sharing of pornographic films; details of the recipients of these letters were obtained from their internet service providers, but that information did not establish that it was they who had been using their computers for that purpose.

This case, and rather larger-scale efforts to do likewise in Germany, got a mention in yesterday's proceedings at the MAPPING Extraordinary General Assembly (on which click here for background).

Do any readers of this weblog know whether the Golden Eye demands are still being issued and whether any proceedings for copyright infringement have issued?  And can anyone supply information about attempts that have been made to do things in jurisdictions outside the United Kingdom?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes. Demands are still being made of individuals, at least in the UK. I am a barrister providing pro bono advice to one such individual. Proceedings have not yet been issued as far as I am aware.

Francis Davey said...

A few GoldenEye cases have come my way (usually via the Open Rights Group legal advice panel) too but again only at the advice/demand stage. As far as I know, no proceedings have been issued.

I am quite sure that if proceedings were issued there'd be a good chance of finding pro bono representation.

Andy J said...

Jeremy, When you ask "can anyone supply information about attempts that have been made to do things in jurisdictions outside the United Kingdom?" I assume it is unnecessary to mention Malibu Media, Prenda Law, Righthaven, and Voltage Pictures (Canada)? If you need any specifics, I suggest Techdirt as a good starting point.

Jeremy said...

Andy J, Sorry -- I should have qualified my question by inserting the word 'European' before 'jurisdictions. MAPPING is an EU initiative and I was thinking in purely EU terms.