Firm sued over multiple use of individual's FT.com login

The FT charges US users up to $299 per year for access to some of the content on its website, including searches of its archives. It said in court documents that it believes an account set up by a senior Blackstone employee in 2002 was used between 2006 and 2008 to access thousands of articles at the FT website, "far more than an individual would normally access".

The FT is making a claim for copyright infringement and for offences under computer fraud and abuse laws. The claim has been made in a New York court.

The FT has asked for an award of unspecified damages in the case. The case is against Blackstone and 100 unnamed individuals who worked there.

The FT's lawsuit said that it owns the copyright in the thousands of articles accessed, and that that copyright was violated by the access by people who were not the original account holder.

The FT's action is based not just on the number of articles accessed under the account, whose username was theblackstonegroup and whose password was blackstone, but on the digital traces left behind at its site by the different instances of access.

"Account usage from specific computers is reflected in unique 'cookies'," said the suit. "The number of cookies recorded and the IP addresses associated with the credentials point inescapably to widespread use of the single, individual account on FT.com by many different persons on defendant Blackstone's US-based and non US-based network servers."

Intellectual property law expert Kim Walker of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, said that publishers could take action in the UK on a similar basis.

"If a case was brought in the UK it would not just be for a breach of the subscriber agreement, but also for copyright infringement because articles would be accessed outside of the terms of the contract," he said.

Walker said that the FT was perhaps taking such public action in order to send a message to other companies that such login sharing was not acceptable. He said that self-preservation may be behind publishers' unwillingness to date to take such action.

"I think what has held people back is that they didn't want to be suing their potential biggest clients – it's not good for business," he said. "But it looks like the FT has decided that a line has been crossed."

Walker said that companies which suspect that such login sharing is taking place should tell employees not to do it.

"This should be part of companies' copyright policies, and as part of the company's risk management policy it should ensure that staff know that it is unacceptable," he said. "They will have the best possible chance of at least minimising their liabilities should someone be caught doing it if they can show that they did all they could to prevent the infringement of copyright happening."