Murky law?
It seems it is getting harder for the entertainment industry to punish people connected with illegal file sharing after prosecutors have dropped a case against 2 men accused of pirating films.
Two men who ran FileSoup, a site to help users find films to download via BitTorrent, have been found ‘not guilty,' perhaps signalling a trend in the difficulty of prosecuting ‘go-between' sites, The Telegraph reported.
Stephen Lanning, from Somerset and George Cartledge, from Glasgow reportedly faced charges of conspiracy to infringe copyright, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to proceed with a trial to nail the duo after following legal advice, which apparently said the alleged copyright infringements were a civil, not criminal matter.
The men were apparently arrested in August 2009 after police were tipped off by film industry body FACT. Their charges were reportedly for alleged unlawful sharing of a trio of films including X-Men Origins:Wolverine, which was leaked onto file sharing networks in April 2009 ahead of its official release, forcing the FBI to investigate.
While the lack a result for the prosecution in 1 case might not be a big deal, the allegations were similar to another case, which also did not stick.
Alan Ellis, the administrator of BitTorrent site OiNK was apparently acquitted of conspiracy to defraud by a jury around this time last year, after arguing he simply offered a service a bit like Google and was not responsible if users of his service chose to infringe copyright. Just like FileSoup, OiNK posted links to BitTorrent downloads, but did not directly share music and film files.
Cartledge's solicitor, David Cook, who also represented OiNK, told the newspaper: "This case is not a one-off. We have now seen two prosecutions for allegations such as these which were fundamentally flawed. We have persistently worked in exposing the flaws in these cases which have resulted in the absolute failure of both prosecutions."
Simon Morgan, managing partner of Morgan Rose Solicitors, of the firm that represented Lanning, reportedly said: "We are pleased to see that a sensible and appropriate view was ultimately taken by the CPS to offer no evidence in the case. The Court of Appeal has found that cases involving complex issues of copyright law are much more appropriately heard in the civil courts rather than the criminal courts."
A CPS spokesperson told the Telegraph: "The Crown Prosecution Service advised the Court today that it is neither necessary nor appropriate to continue to pursue this matter in a criminal court."
However, FACT could still apparently pursue the matter through the civil courts.
