UK ISPs Profit From Coughing Up Customer Data

nk497 writes "ISPs in the UK are charging as much as £120 to hand customer data over to rightsholders looking for proof of piracy, according to the Federation Against Software Theft. While ISPs have to hand over log details for free in criminal cases, they are free to charge in civil cases — and can set the price. 'In 2006, we ran Operation Tracker in which we identified about 130 users who were sharing copies of a security program over the web,' said John Lovelock, chief executive of FAST. 'In the end we got about 100 names out of them, but that cost us £12,000, and that was on top of the investigative costs and the legal fees.'"

GOOD!

[sjames]

The more they charge the better. If it actually costs some real money, the rights holders will naturally be driven to avoid the frivolous requests they've become notorious for. Alas, 120 isn't likely enough. After all, the biggest repeat customers can and do afford a noticeable percentage of Bolivia's "agricultural exports" all by themselves. Perhaps if they spend 10K to find the name and address of someone offering a recording of Dr. Usher's lecture for download they'll finally start bothering to check the content first.

Re:GBP 85 / hr

[lattyware]

And this is Barry, our anti-piracy department.
Barry: Huurrrrrr Derp

Security warez?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it incredible that there are

130 users who were sharing copies of a security program over the web

That's a lot of people who are concerned about security enough to get special software for it, but never stopping to think that the copies they're illegally downloading might be compromised?
We're all doomed.