In March 2012, the High Court ruled that O2/Be had to reveal the addresses of the accounts behind 9,124 IP addresses but the High Court had concerns over the contents of the letters sent. Now a further two months down the road, and the High Court has now approved the text of the letters that will be sent to alleged infringers.
It appears that the first letter will be more of a 'if you have uploaded the material please tell us' type letter, at which point Golden Eye International will calculate a settlement figure. Many will be tempted to just bin the letter, but this carries the risk that further action could be taken. Interestingly Golden Eye had wanted to put some text into the letter threatening that the ISP would slow down or terminate a subscribers internet connection, this threat was ruled as unjustified.
While 9,124 IP addresses have been logged as using peer to peer networks to upload material where Golden Eye holds the copyright, in reality this is likely to refer to fewer user accounts, due to the dynamic nature of IP addresses.
Perhaps the true reason for pursuing people is that the recession has hurt the porn industry as with other industries, and when times were good and sales of DVD and web site subscriptions were high, then the level of infringement was accepted as a way to promote sites and content, but now based on comments in the BBC article and coverage a few weeks ago on ISPreview it looks as if these letters are an attempt to create a new revenue stream.
Hopefully early on in the letter writing some cases will go all the way to court, so that the evidence can be tested. Previous letter writing campaigns have for some unknown reason tried to keep cases out of court, or at least that is the impression one gets.
I always though pornography was not copyrightable due to been obscene material