The BBC have just reported that Ben Dover Productions have won the right to have access to the IP addresses of O2 customers suspected of illegally sharing pornographic films it is expected that they will begin receiving letters from the film-maker shortly. The firm won a court order in March forcing O2 to pass on details of the owners of 9,124 IP addresses linked to illegal downloads.
The article continues:
The High Court has now approved the text of the message that will be sent.
Ben Dover has said its focus is on users who had uploaded films to others.
The commercial director of the firm - which is registered at Companies House as Golden Eye International - said that parties who "simply downloaded one film" would not be pursued.
"In our first letter we seek to find out more information regarding evidence of an infringement of our copyright," said Julian Becker.
"Depending on the response to our letters we will then decide our next action."
It is understood that recipients will be told what to do to negotiate a settlement, and will be warned that if they do not respond they could be found liable.
They will be given 28 days to reply after the judge said that a 14 day limit requested by Ben Dover was "unreasonable".
The firm was also told it could not specify compensation of £700 but should individually negotiate a settlement sum with each defendant.
The judge added that a threat to tell users it would ask the ISP to "slow down or terminate your internet connection" if they did not comply was unjustified.
A statement from O2 said: "We are pleased that the court has taken a robust approach and controlled the tone and content of the letter Golden Eye proposes to send to our customers. We are also pleased that the judge acknowledged the unique position we are in, and agreed that we have approached this issue in a reasonable way."
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