We've discussed in the past the oddity of how a UK anti-piracy group, FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft), which is a private organization set up and controlled by large entertainment industry players, being deeply involved in criminal investigations and cases against individuals. In the case against Surfthechannel, FACT was directly involved in seizing and keeping the computers involved and then in paying the police for the prosecution. Even if you can reasonably argue that they should be involved in helping with providing information for the investigation, you'd think most people would agree that that's where the industry's involvement should end. They shouldn't be present on raids. They shouldn't get to touch or keep the evidence. And they certainly shouldn't be financing and pressing the criminal case.

But, apparently, the industry's control over law enforcement in the UK continues. TorrentFreak reports on how FACT teamed up with local police to send five police cars to house to arrest a guy and seize his electronic equipment with FACT employees, because FACT claimed the guy had filmed a movie and uploaded it. Apparently, the person they were actually looking for no longer lived at the address, but it didn't stop police from taking the guy to the police station where he was interrogated mainly by FACT employees with the police just sitting back and taking notes.

“At the police station I was interviewed by the police together with FACT (Federation Against Copyright and Theft). During questioning they asked me about Fast and Furious 6, where I obtained a copy from and if I was the one who went and recorded it at the cinema.”

Despite police involvement, as in previous cases it appears they were only present in order to gain access to the victim’s property, sit on the sidelines taking notes, and for their powers when it comes to presenting crimes for prosecution.

“I was detained for 3 hrs 12 minutes, out of that I was questioned for approximately 40 minutes. One police officer and two FACT officers conducted the interview. The police officer sat back and let FACT do all the questioning, so FACT were running the show,” the man reports.

As for what charges were used to arrest the guy? The vaguely ridiculous: "Miscellaneous Offense." When the guy questioned the police, they said they "could not find the relevant charge." Wow.

In the meantime, the guy has been released on bail and told that he's not allowed to enter any movie theater in England or Wales "while the investigation is being carried out."

No matter which side of the debate you're on, I'd hope you can recognize how utterly insane it is to allow private parties to effectively run a criminal investigation like this.

Remember when Righthaven used to demand the URLs of sites it accused of infringement, based on nothing but wishful thinking? Apparently the UK "anti-piracy" group FACT has taken that to a new level, reaching out to numerous sites it believes are guilty of encouraging infringement, and asking them to hand over their sites... or face a lawsuit. This is only slightly nicer than having the government come in and seize the domains, but barely. Considering that FACT was the group that ran the privately funded lawsuit against SurfTheChannel's Anton Vickerman, it at least suggests that they might actually take various sites to court. And, in response, many sites are just handing over the domains. That's gotta be cheaper and easier than fighting, and that seems to be a lot of what FACT is banking on. Still, demanding a URL as a condition of not getting prosecuted really does seem like bullying activity that borders on extortion. You'd think that FACT would have better things to do these days than go after websites it doesn't like with expensive threats.

Back in 2009, we wrote about how anti-piracy organization FACT worked closely with UK law enforcement to have the guy who operated Filesoup arrested. At the time, we noted that it wasn't at all clear what he was doing that was illegal, as the site was merely a forum. Though some people did, in fact, use that forum for the sake of infringement, that shouldn't implicate the forum host. And, in fact, after about a year and a half, the courts dropped the case, realizing that the arguments the industry kept feeding law enforcement didn't add up to anything illegal. The court noted that the charges never should have been brought in the first place. Of course, that's small comfort to the folks who ran the site and had to go through this ordeal. The site has announced that it's shutting down, and the arrests and lawsuits were a big part of what killed it.

Last month, we wrote about the lawsuit brought by UK anti-piracy industry group FACT against the company Scopelight and its founders for running a video search engine called Surfthechannel.com. Considering it was simply a video search engine and pointed to content that was both authorized and unauthorized, we wondered how FACT could tell a legit search engine from an illegal one. However, more details on the case are coming to light, and the whole thing seems questionable. Someone, who prefers to remain anonymous, sent along the news that the lawyers for Scopelight have now won the first battle against FACT, and the full decision reveals some rather troubling details about how closely FACT -- a private industry group -- collaborated with the police in the initial investigation, and then FACT's own actions after the police investigation concluded.

It's already troubling enough that a private industry group, involved solely in activities designed to protect a business model, was allowed to work so closely with police in a criminal investigation. FACT alerted the police to potential illegality at Scopelight, which is fine, but from then on FACT was intimately involved in the criminal investigation. When the owners of Scopelight, Anton Benjamin Vickerman and his wife Kelly-Anne Vickerman, had their home raided by the police... FACT came along for the investigation. Not only that, but they had their own private investigator copy information from the Vickerman's computers (exactly what and how much was copied is apparently in dispute). When the Vickerman's were questioned by the police, FACT members took part in the questioning.

It seems troubling enough that private industry reps were allowed to be so closely involved in a criminal investigation where they have clear bias, but it gets worse. The police seized various computers and equipment as part of arresting the Vickerman's, and then allowed FACT employees to inspect the computers and the information found on them -- which, again seems to be granting way too much access to a private group. Then things got even more bizarre: the police gave a bunch of the equipment to FACT to allow FACT to continue to examine the equipment.

A few months after the original raid, investigation and arrest, the police decided that there wasn't enough for criminal charges, and decided not to prosecute the Vickerman's. The police told the Vickerman's their property could be returned, so the Vicerkman's lawyers contacted FACT asking for the equipment back, at which point FACT refused, claiming it was holding onto the equipment because it was considering bringing a civil suit against the Vickermans -- which it eventually did bring.

So beyond the rather stunning close working relationship between the police and a private industry group on a criminal investigation, including handing over evidence to a private party, once the police decided not to prosecute, that private party decided to keep the computer equipment and use it for a civil suit. Thankfully, the court has ruled that this latter decision was improper, and the moment the police decided not to prosecute, the equipment should have been returned. So while this is a victory for Scopelight, it's still a rather stunning revelation of how closely integrated a private industry organization is with criminal investigations, and certainly raises questions as to why such a group should get such access.

Perhaps taking a page from certain universities, the London bureau chief of the Agence France Presse (AFP), Pierre Lesourd, stated that the news agency's reporters are not allowed to use Facebook and Wikipedia as sources. However, Lesourd at least clarified the policy -- saying that reporters can cite any online resources as long as they also refer to other reliable, independent sources to verify the facts. Lesourd announced the AFP's position after the issue came up due to several news agencies being fooled by a fake profile of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Facebook.

Fortunately, the AFP realizes that fact-checking is an important part of its journalistic mission, but it seems a bit disappointing that this basic principle of responsible news reporting needs to be re-affirmed for "new media" sources. Then again, there will always be mistakes in any kind of research, so the real lesson here may be that there is an equally important basic principle of reading the news: "Don't believe everything you read."