Britain gets tough on internet pirates

Britain gets tough on internet pirates

A senior law court in the United Kingdom has instructed 10 ISPs operating in the country to give details on 150 UK customers who have been accused of sharing illegal software on the internet. These efforts from the court come after around 12-months of investigation by the Federation Against Software Theft (Fast).

Some of the major internet service providers being told to give out details are BT, NTL, Telewest, and Tiscali. They have been instructed to provide the courts details on names, addresses and other personal details of the alleged file-sharers. Fast had to resort to courts to get information on these alleged online pirates because most web users use fake identities on the net to protect themselves from getting caught easily.

John Lovelock, director general at Fast said in a statement on these initiatives: “We can easily take down links, but this does not tackle the root causes of software piracy, because the links will reappear elsewhere in a matter of hours. Instead, we plan to take action a lot further, making an example of the perpetrators to stop them from stealing and passing on the intellectual property of our members for good.”

As per agencies, as many as 25% of the software installations in the country are pirated and illegal versions.