Woman fined £16,000 in file sharing crackdown

One of the first people to be taken to court

19 August 2008 10:02 GMT / By Katie Scott

And so it starts ... the Italian government is trying to ban Pirate Bay, ISPs in the UK are sending letters to internet users who they know are illegally downloading content from the web, and now someone has actually been taken to court.

A woman, who hasn't been named, has been ordered to pay a £16,000 fine for file sharing.

The law firm behind the case, Davenport Lyons in London, said that she was caught in a swoop on internet users across the country.

In this case, it is a computer game manufacturer who is pursuing and the Patents County Court in London has now ordered the woman to pay damages of £6086.56 and combined costs of £10,000 to Topware Interactive.

The company owns computer game Dream Pinball 3D.

And there's more cases to come.

Davenport Lyons has launched civil proceedings against 100 people suspected of similar offences on behalf of the games manufacturer.

David Gore, a partner at Davenport Lyons, told Sky News: "Illegal file-sharing is a very serious issue resulting in millions of pounds of losses to copyright owners".

"As downloading speeds and internet penetration increase, this continues to be a worldwide problem across the media industry which increasingly relies on digital revenues."

Full tags

Software, Online, Video downloads, Gaming, Pirate Bay, Lawsuits, Audio, Biz, P2P