SurfTheChannel Owner Jailed for Copyright Infringement - parkisonthempoess

The British owner of surfthechannel.com, a video-linking website, has been sentenced to four years hind end parallel bars for facilitating copyright infraction, making him the first British citizen in the In agreement Realm to represent captive for running a site that connected to pirated embodied.

Anton Vickerman, 38, was convicted of two counts of conspiracy to short-change after a private investigation that was funded by copyright owners. Vickerman's website circumvented British copyright laws by linking to pirated content instead of hosting it. Because of that, the Confederacy Against Right of first publication Theft (FACT), which is funded by Hollywood and affiliated with the MPAA, ready a sting operation to gimmick Vickerman.

[Does Faster Net Access Come-on Piracy?]

What's interesting about Vickerman's story is just how involved the FACT/MPAA investigation was. Reported to TorrentFreak, FACT set up a sting and compiled a operative amount of personal information on Vickerman and his wife. FACT apparently managed to nab Vickerman's habitation address, make/mannequin/registration number of his wife's car and detailed loan and mortgage data.

FACT also compiled detailed information on Vickerman's wife and parents, including banking and charge card information.

The private investigators also set up a sting operation and sent undercover agents to find more information about Vickerman, his wife, and the website. One agent posed as a venture capitalist who was interested in funding the website (bad normal), merely another agent posed arsenic a potential house buyer (non so normal).

During one of the meetings with an undercover agent, Vickerman revealed that the land site had an average of 400,000 visitors each day and made about $50,000 in monthly revenue from ads. When Vickerman's house was raided, it became clear just how intimately FACT and the MPAA were working with the authorities; Hollywood representatives were allowed to participate in the perplexed and private investigators were allowed to examine appropriated equipment.

Ultimately, UK authorities decided not to engage a case against the Vickermans (Kelly Vickerman was also arrested, but her charges were dropped). However, FACT and the MPAA were allowed to pursue a private prosecution over conspiracy to rook, which finally resulted in Vickerman's remand sentence.

If you think this all sounds a little fishy, you'Re not alone. The GB Pirate Party correctly points out that at that place are some serious issues with how this case went down.

"This was not a case brought using copyright police," UK Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye said in a financial statement to ZDNet. "The interest groups involved couldn't present a case of copyright infringement and decided to press for the enjoyment of the case law discourtesy of 'confederacy to gip.' This offense is incredibly controversial in English law arsenic it criminalizes conduct by two surgery more parties that would non be wrong when performed by an individual."

The fact that much of the prove in the Vickerman case came from industry groups is besides worrying. TorrentFreak points out the Vickerman case is similar to the FileSoup case, which ended up existence dismissed because the introduced evidence had been gathered solely away FACT.

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/460679/surfthechannel_owner_jailed_for_copyright_infringement.html

Posted by: parkisonthempoess.blogspot.com