The investigation was conducted by Avon and Somerset Police in
conjunction with film industry trade body the Federation Against
Copyright Theft (FACT).
"A 50 year old man was arrested on July 27th on suspicion of
breaching the Copyright and Patents Act," said a spokeswoman for
Avon and Somerset Police. "He has been released on police bail
pending further enquiries. The operation was run jointly with
FACT."
An account of the arrest posted at Filesoup which purports to be
from the man, who is known only as Geeker, said that he was held in
a police station for seven hours and that 33 items were taken from
his house.
According to file-sharing news site Torrentfreak.com, Filesoup
is one of the oldest sites of its kind. It claims that the site has
never hosted any copyrighted content, but "links to metadata which
links to material hosted elsewhere."
The account posted at Filesoup claims that the search warrant
was issued under Section 109 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act of 1988. That provision in the Act allows a search of premises
when there are reasonable grounds for believing that certain
offences have been or are about to be committed.
These offences include distributing an infringing work and
"communicating the work to the public," either in the course of a
business or "otherwise than in the course of a business to such an
extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright".
Geeker's posting says that when he arrived at the police station
his "booking-in charge" was entered as "Suspicion of downloading
copyrighted movies".
His account says that documentation given to him about the
seized items said that he should apply for their examination or
return to Neil Gardner, a senior investigator with FACT at a FACT
address.
A FACT spokesman declined to confirm or deny whether it had the
material in its possession but said that it was not uncommon for
police to use outside organisations to assess or analyse
evidence.
The police spokeswoman would not say whether it or FACT had
physical custody of the material but said that as long as the
police have lawful possession of the material it can be given to
external bodies for examination.
Evidence in a criminal trial was handed over by police to FACT
in a recent case involving company Scopelight in which individuals
were accused of web-related piracy. They were never charged.
FACT refused to return the evidence to police or Scopelight once
the police said there was not enough evidence for a prosecution.
The High Court said in May that retention of the material was
against the law, and that the police were not permitted to keep
material seized for a criminal prosecution on behalf of a private
organisation.
The police and FACT have appealed the ruling and a Court of
Appeal hearing is expected in September.
A third internet piracy case was pursued by the police and FACT
in 2007 when a Gloucestershire man was arrested for allegedly
running a website, TV-links.co.uk, that linked to pirated
television content. According to the Guardian newspaper, no charges
were brought but the site was shut down.
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