FACT investigates and takes action against illegal content providers, and provides information about the risks of engaging with piracy and illegal content. FACT's partnership with Crimestoppers UK allows for the reporting of crime and illegal activity anonymously.
In June 2009, FACT brought criminal prosecution against the company Scopelight and its founder, Anton Vickerman, for running a pirate video search engine called Surfthechannel.com, which had a substantial user base and was a highly profitable illegal business. FACT commenced a private criminal prosecution, which required access to all the evidence in the custody of the police. Action taken by Scopelight's owners to prevent the evidence being given to FACT was rejected at the Court of Appeal (Scopelight & Ors v Chief Constable of Northumbria Police & Federation Against Copyright Theft [2009] EWCA Civ 1156) where the Court judgment made clear the legality of providing evidence to support a private prosecution.[1]
Vickerman was charged with two counts of Conspiracy to Defraud and a criminal trial took place at Newcastle Crown Court in June and July 2012 in front of His Honour Judge Evans.
After a seven-week trial, the jury found Anton Vickerman guilty and he was sentenced to four years' imprisonment on each charge of Conspiracy to Defraud, sentencing to run concurrently.[2]
Subsequently, Vickerman was ordered to pay £73,055.79 within six months or face a further prison sentence under proceeds of crime legislation.[3]
freelivefooty
FACT conducted an investigation into the freelivefooty site and supplied evidence to Thames Valley Police who arrested the principal Gary. The site illegally streamed Premier League matches and charged viewers a price that undercut the official broadcaster, Sky. Gary used a satellite dish, seven computers and nine satellite decoders to run the freelivefooty website from his home.
He was prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service in 2013 and, on conviction, he received a six-month prison sentence suspended for two years and was ordered to carry out 200hours of unpaid work. He was found guilty of one count of communicating a copyrighted work to the public in the course of a business contrary to Section107 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. An accomplice, Bannister, was ordered to carry out 140hours of unpaid work after he was found guilty of transferring criminal property contrary to Section327(1)(d) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.[4]
FACT described this case as "groundbreaking, proving conclusively that operating a website that rebroadcasts copyrighted works without permission is a criminal offence".
NZBsRus
In June 2013, FACT pressured the Usenet file indexing site called NZBsRus to close after issuing cease-and-desist letters to the owner and several staff members.[5]
TheCod3r
In May 2013, Philip Danks attended the Showcase cinema in Walsall and used a camcorder to record Fast & Furious 6 on the day of its release. Danks uploaded this copy online and the film was subsequently downloaded more than 700,000 times, causing significant revenue loss to Universal Pictures. FACT identified Danks by linking him to the online name of the uploader, which was TheCod3r. Five days after the recording was made Danks was arrested by West Midlands Police. Wolverhampton Crown Court heard that despite his arrest Danks continued to copy, sell and distribute illegal copies of films. He also enlisted the help of his sister's ex-boyfriend, Michael Bell, who uploaded films on his behalf.
Both men pleaded guilty to charges of committing offences under the Fraud Act 2006 and the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Danks was sentenced to 33months' imprisonment. Bell received a 12-month Community Order with 120hours of unpaid work.[6]
Paul Mahoney
In 2014, FACT and the Police Service of Northern Ireland led an investigation into Paul Mahoney who ran a website from his bedroom which enabled visitors to find streaming links to films hosted on third party websites. Mahoney generated money by charging for advertising on his website. Mahoney pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy to defraud, one of acquiring criminal property and one of converting criminal property. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment.[7]
Release groups
In 2015, FACT undertook an investigation that led to the first prosecution of a 'release group'. Five suspects distributed illegally recorded copies of films online while they were still being shown in cinemas.
The five, who went under several online aliases including 'memory100', 'Cheese', 'Reidy', 'Cooperman' and 'Kareemzos', all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and were sentenced to a total of 17years' imprisonment.[8]
First sentencing in IPTV boxes case in England
In 2016, a FACT-supported investigation led to the first criminal case involving a supplier of illegal IPTV boxes enabling viewers to watch unauthorised content. Terry O'Reilly and Will O'Leary were selling devices to pubs and consumers which facilitated mass piracy, including the broadcasting of Premier League football on unauthorised channels.
Both defendants were convicted of conspiracy to defraud. O'Reilly was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. O'Leary received a two-year suspended sentence.[9]
Fake DVD sellers jailed
Following an investigation by Suffolk Police and FACT in 2017, three men were jailed for a total of 10years and seven months. Frankie Ansell, his cousin Lee Ansell, Howard Davey and Joseph Plant managed a sophisticated counterfeit DVD business over a two-and-a-half-year period, selling over 31,000DVDs worth more than £500,000.
Frankie Ansell was sentenced to 45months' imprisonment, Lee Ansell and Davey were both sentenced to 41months' imprisonment. Plant received a 16-month sentence suspended for two years and was ordered to complete 200hours of unpaid work.[10]
Evolution Trading
A married couple illegally made £750,000 by selling more than 8,000 illicit streaming devices and running a service that provided illegal access to Premier League football. In 2018, following a FACT-assisted case the owner of the company Evolution Trading, Jon Haggerty, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and dishonestly obtaining services for another. Haggerty was sentenced to five years and three months' imprisonment. His wife, Mary Gilfillan, was convicted of fraud offences and given a two-year suspended sentence.[11]
Dreambox
Three men provided illegal access to Premier League football to more than 1,000 pubs, clubs and homes throughout England and Wales and used a range of technologies to commit fraud over the course of a decade. Trading under the names Dreambox (unincorporated), Dreambox TV Limited and Digital Switchover Limited, the fraudulent companies earned in excess of £5million through illegal activity.
Following a FACT-assisted Premier League investigation, this case saw some of the longest sentences ever issued for piracy-related crimes. In 2019, Steven King, who masterminded the fraud, was sentenced to seven years and four months' imprisonment. Paul Rolston was sentenced to six years and four months’ imprisonment and Daniel Malone was sentenced to three years and three months' imprisonment.[12]
Bovingdon Market
As part of ongoing investigations at Bovingdon Market by Hertfordshire Trading Standards in 2020, supported by FACT, two men were found guilty of encouraging consumers to obtain services dishonestly, contrary to the Serious Crime Act 2007 and the Fraud Act 2006. The jury also found Thomas Tewelde and Mohamed Abdou guilty of failing in their duty of care to ensure that the boxes were electrically safe.
Tewelde and Abdou were each sentenced to 12months' imprisonment suspended for two years and were ordered to pay £1,000 in costs and complete 120hours of unpaid work.[13]
Former police officer jailed
Daniel Aimson was a police officer previously jailed in 2017 for bulk sale cannabis production. A joint operation between Greater Manchester Police and FACT found that a company managed by Aimson sold IPTV devices between September 2016 and May 2017 that allowed customers to bypass paywalls and access subscription sport and film channels for free.
In 2020, Aimson admitted conspiracy to commit fraud and was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment.[14]
Software developer jailed
In 2021, in the first conviction of its type in the UK, a man who created and built a software package which enabled illegal access to BT Sport, Sky, Netflix and other subscription television content via apps and add-ons for the Kodi media player was sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment. Supported by BT Sport and Greater Manchester Police, FACT brought a private prosecution against Stephen Millington, who pleaded guilty to multiple fraud and copyright offences, including making and supplying software to enable illegal access to subscription content, distributing infringing film content via a dedicated server he controlled, sharing login credentials for subscription streaming services and illegally accessing content for his own use.[15]
FACT has produced several adverts which have appeared at the beginning of videos and DVDs released in the UK, as well as trailers shown before films in cinemas.
1980s
Shortly after the founding of the company, FACT (along with sponsorship from Fuji Video Cassettes and Rank Film Laboratories) made a PIF discussing about video piracy and the causes of it. The PIF itself would show pictures of pirated tapes, posters for films released at the time including, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Octopussy, Return of the Jedi and Gandhi, as well as pictures of filmmaking and a cinema disappearing through a transition effect to symbolise the death of the film industry. It then discusses the consequences of video piracy publicly released by the parliament; 2years of prison and unlimited fines, along with a picture of a bargain of legal video tapes disappearing through another transition effect. The PIF ends with the same FACT logo shown at the beginning along with a phone number used at the time.[16] This PIF would be shown in cinemas at the time as well as appearing at the end of various Palace Video rental releases.
1990s
During the 1990s and early 2000s, FACT created a 30-second to 1-minute anti-piracy warning called "Beware of Illegal Video Cassettes",[17] reminding customers to check whether or not they have a genuine VHS cassette, and how to report pirated copies. They would appear on many different video cassettes by various home video companies (mostly major film studios). Versions for each film studio depicting their respective security label (generally either a hologram of the film studio logo or in Disney's case, a film logo) were created, with several iterations for each as the FACT hotline number changed multiple times throughout the decade with the message "Video Piracy Is a Crime, Do Not Accept It". The warning was placed at the beginning of most rental VHS tapes in the UK (as well as many retail tapes), similar to the FBI Warning found on tapes in the United States. CIC Video and The Walt Disney Company had a similar term, with the hologram carrying CIC logo copies. From late 1996, this warning would sometimes be followed by a public information film featuring a man attempting to return a pirate video purchased from a market after discovering that the sound was garbled and the picture unwatchable, ending with the tagline "Pirate Videos: Daylight Robbery”. The "Pirate Videos: Daylight Robbery" ad was used until 2002. A precursor PIF, "Video Piracy: It's Not Worth It!"[18] was released in 1995 and featured a young girl named Rebecca trying to watch a pirated VHS tape on a TV, ending with a VHS player falling down with the words on top: "VIDEO PIRACY. It's not worth it”.
2000s
In 2002, FACT released a PIF called "The Pirates are Out to Get You".[19] It featured a man destroying many items with an X-shaped branding iron, ending with the FACT logo and UK & Ireland (or in Universal's case, Australia & New Zealand as well) hotlines. The warning would be placed at the beginning (and in Universal's case, the end) of rental (and most retail) VHS tapes and some DVDs in the UK, similar to the FBI Warning found on tapes in the United States.
More recent spots have included Knock-off Nigel, devised by the Industry Trust for Intellectual Property Awareness, where a man is ridiculed by his friends and colleagues for buying counterfeit DVDs and downloading films from BitTorrent, along with ads that say "Thank You" to the British public for supporting the film industry by either buying a ticket and seeing a film in the cinema or purchasing a genuine DVD or Blu-ray.
"Home Taping Is Killing Music" was the slogan of a 1980s anti-copyright infringement propaganda campaign by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a British music industry trade group. With the rise in cassette recorder popularity, the BPI feared that the ability of private citizens to record music from the radio onto cassettes would cause a decline in record sales. The logo, consisting of a Jolly Roger formed from the silhouette of a compact cassette, also included the words "And It's Illegal". The campaign was officially launched by then-BPI chairman Chris Wright on 28 October 1981.
Hew Raymond Griffiths was accused by the United States of being a ring leader of DrinkOrDie or DOD, an underground software infringement network, using the online identity of "Bandido". Griffiths was living in Berkeley Vale in the Central Coast Region of NSW, Australia before he was placed on remand at Silverwater Correctional Centre. After fighting extradition for almost 3 years, Griffiths was finally extradited from Australia to the United States and on 20 February 2007, appeared before Magistrate Judge Barry R. Portez of the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. On 20 April, it was announced by the U.S. Department of Justice that Griffiths had entered a plea of guilty.
Operation Safehaven was a fifteen-month investigation conducted by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut and the Department of Justice against those affiliated with the warez scene.
Don't Copy That Floppy was an anti-copyright infringement campaign run by the Software Publishers Association (SPA) beginning in 1992.
The Serious Fraud Office is the public service department of New Zealand charged with detecting, investigating and prosecuting financial crimes, including corruption, of a serious and complex nature.
Per Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, alias anakata, is a Swedish computer specialist, known as the former co-owner of the web hosting company PRQ and co-founder of the BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay together with Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde.
"Piracy is theft" was a slogan used by UK non-profit organization FAST. It was first used in the 1980s and has since then been used by other similar organisations such as MPAA. It has also been used as a statement, although that has been challenged as being inaccurate.
Oink's Pink Palace was a prominent BitTorrent tracker which operated from 2004 to 2007. Following a two-year investigation by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the site was shut down on 23 October 2007, by British and Dutch police agencies. These music industry organisations described OiNK as an "online pirate pre-release music club", whereas former users described it as one of the world's largest and most meticulously maintained online music repositories. About a month before the shut-down, music magazine Blender elected OiNK's creator, British software engineer Alan Ellis, to their The Powergeek 25 – the Most Influential People in Online Music list. Alan Ellis was tried for conspiracy to defraud at Teesside Crown Court, the first person in the UK to be prosecuted for illegal file-sharing, and found not guilty on 15 January 2010.
Operation Site Down is the umbrella name for a law enforcement initiative conducted by the United States' FBI and law enforcement agents from ten other countries which resulted in a raid on targets on June 29, 2005. Three separate undercover investigations were involved, based in Chicago, Charlotte and San Jose. The raid consisted of approximately 70 searches in the U.S. and approximately 20 others in ten other countries in an effort to disrupt and dismantle many of the leading Warez groups which distribute and trade in copyrighted software, movies, music and games on the Internet.
The use of the BitTorrent protocol for the unauthorized sharing of copyrighted content generated a variety of novel legal issues. While the technology and related platforms are legal in many jurisdictions, law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies are attempting to address this avenue of copyright infringement. Notably, the use of BitTorrent in connection with copyrighted material may make the issuers of the BitTorrent file, link or metadata liable as an infringing party under some copyright laws. Similarly, the use of BitTorrent to procure illegal materials could potentially create liability for end users as an accomplice.
"You Wouldn't Steal a Car" is the first sentence of a public service announcement that debuted on July 27, 2004, which was part of the anti-copyright infringement campaign "Piracy. It's a crime." It was created by the Federation Against Copyright Theft and the Motion Picture Association of America in cooperation with the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, and appeared in theaters internationally from 2004 until 2008, and on many commercial DVDs during the same period as an ad preceding the main menu, as either an unskippable or skippable video.
DrinkOrDie (DoD) was one of the most prestigious underground software piracy group and warez trading network during the 1990s. On 11 December 2001 a major law enforcement raid - known as Operation Buccaneer - forced it to close under criminal charges of infringement. DoD, as a rule, received no financial profit for their activities. The DoD network - which primarily consisted of university undergraduates - was also supported by software company employees, who leaked copies of software and other digital media. DoD was also actively involved in illicit file-trading with other networks.
Copyright infringement is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to produce derivative works. The copyright holder is usually the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom copyright has been assigned. Copyright holders routinely invoke legal and technological measures to prevent and penalize copyright infringement.
Knock-off Nigel was a 2007 television campaign against copyright infringement in the United Kingdom.
NinjaVideo was a website created in February 2008 containing links to uploaded videos of TV shows, movies, and documentaries. Since June 30, 2010, the site has been unavailable, as a result of a multinational anti-piracy effort led by the US federal government. At the centre of the takedown, was the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) initiative as Operation In Our Sites, citing that they were, "targeting pirate websites run by people who have no respect for creativity and innovation". Federal search warrants were executed at servers in the United States and the Netherlands. At the time of its seizure, the site was visited more than 6 million times a month.
Richard O'Dwyer is a British entrepreneur & computer programmer who created the TVShack.net search engine while a student at Sheffield Hallam University.
Anton Vickerman is a British disc jockey and website operator. He was the operator of Surfthechannel.com, a link site. He was sentenced to four years in jail following a privately funded legal campaign after British public prosecutors refused to try him. It has been called the first high-profile successful prosecution for the film industry. He is the first UK citizen sent to prison for linking to films and TV shows.
Surfthechannel.com was a popular link website for people seeking TV shows and movies. It had over 400,000 visitors a day. While the site hosted no videos, it organized a collection of links that made it popular with those seeking content. At the site's peak in mid-2009 it generated up to £50,000 ($78,500) per month in advertising revenue, and was more popular than Facebook. It was shuttered by Federation Against Copyright Theft and its operator, Anton Vickerman, was tried, convicted and sentenced to four years in jail by a private party prosecution under British law. In November 2012 Anton Vickerman admitted Contempt of Court in relation to material he caused to be published on the Internet on sentencing, and he received a further term of imprisonment.
Xiang Li is a Chinese computer hacker. He is serving a twelve-year sentence in federal prison in the United States.
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