Wednesday | 3 December, 2008
Music piracy team raids ISP over BitTorrent
Steven Deare (PC World) 10/03/2005 18:08:25

Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) has raided Perth ISP Swiftel, claiming the company used the BitTorrent peer-to-peer technology to link to sound and video recordings.

Music industry investigators and lawyers entered the Swiftel premises Thursday afternoon under Anton Piller orders issued the previous day by the Federal Magistrates Court in Sydney.

MIPI general manager, Michael Speck, said he and his team were gathering evidence of copyright infringement.

"We have identified Swiftel as an ISP which has adopted BitTorrent technology to link infringers to music clips and sound recordings," Speck said.

"We believe hundreds of thousands of downloads have been conducted during the last year in breach of copyright laws."

He said Swiftel used BitTorrent to conduct "high volume sophisticated linking" for its customer base: "They've been operated from within."

However, Ryan O'Hare, CEO of Swiftel parent company People Telecom, said the matter concerned Swiftel customers, not the ISP. "We haven't adopted anything like that [BitTorrent]. We deny that," he said.

"There's no evidence that we have any activity in this way.

"It's about one or a few Swiftel customers."

But Speck said the evidence was located at Swiftel, not elsewhere.

"Look, there's no doubt this is about the ISP," he said.

MIPI has previously said its strategy is not to target individual users, rather larger organised infringement.

Speck said MIPI would take its evidence back to the Federal Magistrates Court next week.

Additional Resources
Executive Guides
Whitepapers
Zones
Zone logoZones provide focussed content from Computerworld and leading technology partners.
Newsletter Subscription
Sign up for our Computerworld newsletters!
RSS Feeds
Market Place

 

Smart SOA World Tour

Discover how SOA can create smarter outcomes for your business.

Attend and learn:

  • How SOA is helping leading companies to become more agile
  • Where you should be applying SOA processes in your company
  • The top SOA implementation mistakes to avoid

Click here for more information.
Whitepaper

Solve Exchange Mailbox Storage Issues Once and for All

Join industry expert Bob Spurzem and Chuck Arconi of Fox Hollow to discover how to reduce Exchange total storage and keep it at a manageable level. Learn how Exchange storage growth can be contained without sacrificing security and accessibility.

Enterprise IT Buyer's Guide
Find Technology Vendors Fast
 
Find vendors by name | Find by category
Sponsored Links