Golden Eye wins appeal to get names of Be and O2 customers

Golden Eye International said after winning its appeal in the UK court to act on behalf of other rights holders it was going to open up its copyright infringment service to US companies.

The porn distributor won its latest legal case to force Be Broadband and O2 to disclose the names and addresses of more people it says have illegally downloaded adult films, and this has potentially opened the floodgates for the company to to pursue thousands more.

Julian Becker, Golden Eye director said: "I look forward to travelling to adult conferences  in LA and Vegas in early January to offer Golden Eye's services to other producers with a view to helping them protect their brands' copyright in the UK."

An earlier court ruling blocked an attempt by the distributor of pornographic films for Ben Dover Productions acting on behalf of other companies.

But the court of appeal ruled that this was unfair. Now internet service providers O2 and Be will have to hand over the details of people who used 6,155 IP addresses identified by Golden Eye by date and time as the connections used to illegally download media from companies other than Ben Dover Productions.

This is on top of the details of customers found from more than 2,800 IP addresses that these ISPs have already handed over  

Becker said: "Adult content is legal in the UK and should be given the same rights as mainstream films. However, in reality, I believe there is always going to be a bias against this genre of film because although 85 per cent of computers exhibit porn history, 90 per cent of users will preach against it.

"This makes me wonder if GoldenEye represented the interests of mainstream producers, would there have been such a long and expensive legal process?"

Michael Forrester of law firm Kuits said people  receive any letters should not ignore them and seek legal advice. But he questioned whether an IP address alone is sufficient for a claim by Golden Eye to succeed.

"I have been involved in cases where the court has questioned if IP address evidence alone is enough to succeed in a claim for copyright infringement. Merely allowing someone access to their internet connection for general use or having an unsecure connection is unlikely to be enough," he said.