UK ISP deletes records of 20,000 alleged file-sharers

UK record label Ministry of Sound was in the midst of legal action against 25,000 customers of ISP BT Broadband for illegal file-sharing. That is, until this week when they found out that BT had deleted over 20,000 of the requested records.

The record label has been working with courts since July to get information from various ISPs to send out copyright infringement letters and settlement offers to alleged uploaders of their music. All had gone smoothly until last month when BT decided to withhold further subscriber information until they received assurance that their customers would retain their privacy.

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In the additional time it took for Ministry of Sound to follow through with the requested privacy safeguards, BT deleted 20,000 of the records by following their standard operation procedures.

"All such information is automatically deleted from our systems after 90 days in accordance with our data retention policy; the Ministry of Sound and it solicitors are well aware of this,” a representative of BT told Slyck.com. “Upon request from Ministry of Sound we saved as much of the specific data sought as we reasonably could and any not preserved must have been too old. Our door remains open to Ministry of Sound and any other rights holder who wants to enforce their rights in a fair way through an established legal process."

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Ministry of Sound is dropping the request for the remaining 5,000 BT customers, but says that this incident won’t deter them from pursuing future cases against file-sharers.

“It is very disappointing that BT decided not to preserve the identities of the illegal uploaders. Given that less than 20% of the names remain and BT costs have soared from a few thousand pounds to several hundred thousand pounds, it makes no economic sense to continue with this application,” the company CEO Lohan Presencer said. “We are more determined than ever to go after internet users who illegally upload our copyrighted material.”

This isn’t the first setback for Ministry of Sound since they began their pursuit. In early October the record label and their law firm, Gallant MacMillan, were targeted by an Operation Payback DDoS attack that left their website down for nearly 48 hours.

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I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Ministry of Sound try to petition the court to get BT to change their data retention policy in light of this event. It is good, however, to see an ISP try to stand up for their customers’ rights. Kudos to BT for attempting to protect subscribers’ privacy.

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