Carphone Warehouse: We won't shop or sue freetards

Carphone Warehouse says it won't pass on any data to record companies from its new cloud music service, Music Anywhere, contrary to claims made by a freelance activist.

Alexander Hanff, a self-employed consultant to Privacy International, said on BBC Radio 4's Reality Check discussion that "it will report you, and you will be sued".

That's rubbish, we were told by a spokesperson for Catch Media, which provides the technology for the service to CpW. But he did say the T&C could have been more clearly worded.

The cloud service offers streaming and a locker service for £29 a year. One condition states that "in extreme cases where it becomes apparent that most of a person’s music collection has been fact pirated, Music Anywhere reserves the right to terminate the service".

But nobody will be sued, says Sam Shemtob for Name Music PR, because no data will be passed on to record companies.

"It's utter rubbish. They're not on the lookout for pirates, but nevertheless reserve the right to terminate under abuse.  What would anyone else do?"

"Catch Media doesn't monitor individual tracks for whether they are pirated." If somebody registers 75,000 tracks that have previously never been registered, "then that might raise a flag".

UK Music's Feargal Sharkey, on the same panel discussion as Hanff, also shot down the scare.

"There's nothing in those T&Cs that says the industry will sue you. It's the same as thousands of other Terms and Conditions we interact with online, and nothing different to those from Microsoft or Apple."

Anti-copyright campaigner Hanff, who previously ran a Torrent tracker, insisted the cloud service was "a negative piece of technology".

Whatever. ®