The ethical torrent website UKNova has decided to close down after 
being targeted by the Federation Against Copyright Theft. This decision comes on the heels of another website called SurfTheChannel which was also pressured by F.A.C.T to close down.
This comes is a sad day for many UK ex pats around the world who relied on this website for their UKTV programmes for more than 9 years. UK ex pats relied on this website because they had limited means of accessing content from the UK, which is due to geo block isp restrictions.
The site owners claim that they had a set of ethical guide lines in place that would prevent any copyright infringement from taking place that would have resulted in the loss of revenue to the companies concerned. But that argument was not considered enough for F.A.C.T. to prevent a potential breach of copyright infringement. They went on to issue a “cease and desist” notice, which listed a number of claimants against the site. One of the site administrators told the website Torrent Freak that:
“There was one very big UK satellite provider, some of whose content (a tiny percentage from their basic package) was available on UKN, there was also a football production company.
“The remaining members represent post-transmission marketing of DVDs etc. The major UK TV companies are not F.A.C.T members and were not mentioned.”
UKNova did not confirm the identities of the companies, but the “very big UK satellite provider” is thought to be Sky, a F.A.C.T member, while the football company is most likely the Premier League.
As soon as UKNova became aware of these complaints from these companies. A UKNova admin told the Torrent Freak that:
“We immediately removed the alleged offending links to content that could be [connected to] the two companies and replied to F.A.C.T assuring them of our cooperation in the matter, but asking them to point out examples of potentially offending links,” .
The organisation F.A.C.T then went on to inform UKNova that “ALL links or access to content provided by UKNova are infringing, unless you can prove that you have obtained explicit permission from the copyright holder for that content,” .
The site administrators after careful consideration, decided to close this site down to avoid a costly legal battle that they would probably loose. The site administrators told Torrent Freak that:
“The people who run UKNova have families, careers and professional reputations that could be menaced by lengthy legal proceedings, whether successful or not. Whilst we believe that F.A.C.T are wrong both legally and morally on account of the strong ‘no commercial content’ stance that we have always taken, we are not in a position to be able to risk lengthy and costly court battles to prove this,”
The site administrator went on to say that:
“It is a sad day when a site whose mission has always been to bring much-missed UK TV to ex-pats and Anglophiles at the four corners of the world is forced to stop this activity. Nobody will be plugging a huge revenue hole because we are gone, but tens of thousands of avid viewers will suffer.”
However this action by F.A.C.T will not stop file sharing. There actions will in fact drive people who want UK content to search out other websites, such as the thepiratebay that do not care less if they commit copyright infringement, which will further deny content holders out of potential revenue streams.
