Another UK BitTorrent Lawsuit Dropped

Two operators of FileSoup, the longest standing BitTorrent site, had their case dismissed by the Crown Prosecution Service. Actually, the prosecution only relied on the evidence by the anti-piracy outfit Federation Against Copyright Theft, also known as FACT, and due to this one-side view failed to build a case. The case became the second one, after the trial of OiNK, where British BitTorrent website admins have walked free.

FileSoup was launched 8 years ago, so it can be considered one of the original BitTorrent services. In fact, it outlived a huge number of trackers that sprung up around the time. Meanwhile, the service developed a reputation and a welcoming community in 8 years of existence. Everything has been going smooth, until 2 years ago, without any noticeable trouble, police and the Hollywood-backed outfit FACT suddenly decided to conduct a raid in the house of the site’s founder nicknamed “TheGeeker”. The first raid was followed by the second one on the property of fellow admin “Snookered”. Both of the site operators were arrested and taken in for questioning. Then, in a year, they were charged with conspiracy to violate copyright for their involvement with the online file-sharing service. Like many British cases, this one could only boast the evidence by the Hollywood-funded outfit FACT, and no other independent investigation.

This appeared to be the reason for the court to drop the case. The solicitors of the site operators, who previously managed to defend the owner of OiNK tracker, pushed the prosecutor to formulate the charges, which they failed to do. In fact, the prosecution couldn’t even understand technical side of the matter, wasn’t sure whether to prosecute BitTorrent tracker as a business or not, and didn’t know whether the rights owner had caused prejudice. As far as there wasn’t any additional investigation into the issue, no-one could answer these questions, which made the Crown Prosecution Service to dismiss the case entirely. The court ruling read that the offenses were rather a civil matter than criminal one, so no more public money should have been spent on the prosecution.

The site operators are relieved at the end of the trial, while FACT is quite frustrated by having spent thousands of dollars on this very case. Best for the British tax payers, the justice was served by dismissing the case.