The owner/operator and principal uploader of the Dancing Jesus forum, the most popular music file sharing website in the UK, were prosecuted to conviction in a Private Prosecution brought by the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) and undertaken by David Groome & Ari Alibhai of QEB Hollis Whiteman.
The investigation involved simultaneous raids being executed by the City of London Police and Homelands Security Investigations in the US. The website was responsible for providing access to over 22,000 popular sound recordings and the case represents another landmark victory for the music industry in particular and the creative industries in general.
This is the third major ground breaking private prosecution success in recent years on behalf of the creative industries by Groome and Alibhai - recently likened to a modern day Holmes & Watson in The Times of London. In August this year Philip Danks was sentenced to 33 months in prison for recording, uploading and distributing the movie Fast and Furious 6, costing Universal Pictures an estimated £2.3 million and, in 2010, Anton Vickerman, founder of surfthechannel.com which provided links to infringing material, was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment. Both prosecutions were undertaken by Groome and Alibhai on behalf of FACT (the Federation Against Copyright Theft).
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