— 5 — C. How the appellant came to be charged 13. Internet newsgroups provide a forum for discussion and the exchange of information among persons sharing particular interests. On 10 January 2005, an officer of the Customs and Excise Department was browsing an internet forum devoted to BitTorrent movies, known as “bt.movie.hk”. He saw that a person using the nickname “Big Crook” had posted a message on that forum together with a “.torrent” file (that is, a computer file with a “.torrent” suffix to its name) to enable others to download a film entitled “Daredevil” from “Big Crook’s” computer using BitTorrent technology. The nature of .torrent files and how the BitTorrent system operates will require further discussion below. It is not in dispute that “Big Crook” was the nickname used by the appellant and that he had posted the relevant message. 14. The Customs Officer downloaded and activated the .torrent file. He thereby succeeded in downloading onto his own computer an entire copy of the copyright film “Daredevil”. On 11 January 2005, the same sequence of events, again commencing with messages and .torrent files posted by “Big Crook” on the news forum, led to the Customs Officer successfully downloading entire copies of copyright films respectively entitled “Red Planet” and “Miss Congeniality”. 15. Every computer has a unique “IP” or “Internet Protocol” address and the newsgroup messages gave an IP address which was traced by Customs Officers to the appellant’s computer. The next morning, they raided his flat where he was found sitting at a computer and surfing the internet. The officers seized the computer together with legitimate VCD copies of the three films in question as well as a digital camera later found to have been used to copy images relating to those films. The seized computer’s hard disk was subjected to detailed forensic analysis and a comparison made between the computer files