British ISPs handing over Bittorrent user info to video game company
Things are getting serious in the pirate world these days and this time, it’s not pressure from a government body or media rights association that has the illegal file-sharing public running scared. It’s from one of the (supposed) good guys, a video game company.
A game publisher, Topware Interactive, has convinced a British court to force ISPs in that country to hand over the names of “several thousand” pirates in an effort to find out just who has been giving away their title, Dream Pinball 3D. It seems that the company has been after the names for some time and they’ve forced BT (a British ISP) and possibly Virgin Media to hand the names over. The surprising part is that, according to a spokesman from BT, the game company’s tactics are even more forceful than the ones usually employed by the music industry:
“It does seem a much more strong arm approach compared to the music industry,” said the BT spokesman. “However, it is only one company pursuing a limited number of miscreants at the moment. I doubt the music industry will follow suit as the potential numbers are too great, but who knows.”
Seeing as how most game companies avoid litigation of those that share their game like the plague, I see this as a completely plausible PR stunt launched by Topwear Inc.; albeit a horribly thought out PR stunt, but it’ll probably work. Honestly, had you even heard of Topwear or their Dream Pinball 3D until this article?
Read more at Torrentfreak
