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."
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