From News.com
Legal services giant Landwell says it will prosecute 4,000 peer-to-peer file-traders in Spain because they have been identified as “serious” unauthorized downloaders of copyrighted songs, films and software.
If it goes ahead, the action will be the largest crackdown on P2P users in Europe to date.
Landwell, the legal arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, earlier this month issued the threat on behalf of clients that have remained unnamed to avoid a backlash by consumers. The company said it had gathered data such as IP addresses on 95,000 file-traders by tapping into P2P systems with older versions of the P2P clients, which don’t encrypt such information.
Landwell said it is working with Spain’s Technological Investigation Brigade (BIT) on the prosecutions and expects the case to appear in court next month. The action mimics a large-scale assault on alleged file-swappers in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which is in the process of filing several hundred lawsuits against them.
However, civil liberties and Internet user groups say they doubt whether the case is valid under Spanish law, or indeed whether it will even be filed, calling it a scare tactic to dampen the use of P2P systems.
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