Be welcomes anti-sharing pact

 

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Posted on 25 Jul 2008 at 10:06

Be broadband has welcomed the new government-led initiative to tackle unauthorised file sharing.

The O2-owned ISP was not one of the one of six ISPs to sign a memorandum of understanding with the BPI, MPAA and UK government that commits them to work together to stamp out file sharing, but said that it will act if notified that one of its customers is alleged to have been engaged in the sharing of copyright material.

In a statement, Be said that it is receiving an increasing number of requests for information about such customers.

"Where a content owner (like a record label or a games company) approaches Be and requests the details of a member because of an alleged copyright infringement we will not supply this information direct to the requester unless they have a Court Order," the statement says.

Instead, in most circumstances we will try to contact the member in question to make them aware of the complaint. Unless a court order has been issued.

"Under circumstances when a Court Order is served on Be, which requires us to supply information about member activity, we will comply with the Order and pass the relevant contact information to the rights holder (and in accordance with our Privacy and cookie policy). In this case under most circumstance we will not inform the member that this has occurred as this may compromise the investigation related to the Court Order."

One of the six that has signed up, has already indicated that it turning the memorandum of understanding into a legally-backed code of practice may not be straightforward.

Carphone Warehouse has said that it is not prepared to employ the ultimate sanction of disconnecting alleged persistent file sharers, which is what music industry body the BPI is seeking.

"We will not disconnect or threaten to disconnect our customers," a spokesman told PC Pro.

Author: Simon Aughton / Barry Collins