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130 Filesharer Homes Raided in Germany
Flo writes "Today, 130 homes have been raided in Germany under the allegation of filesharing. Law enforcement agencies had been monitoring an eDonkey-Server for two months. 3500 identified users are being investigated. Searches took place when users shared more than 500 files. Partners of the music industry helped identifying copyrighted material, but monitoring of the servers was solely done by law enforcement."
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1196
Copying for private use neither a criminal nor a civil offense in Germany, as long as the source is not an evidently illegal one (ie a movie before its released on DVD - or filesharing).
Copying from an illegal source is a civil offense. So law enforcement still isn't involved at all.
However, distributing copyrighted material is a criminal offense (up to 3 years in prison). And since one can't really download without uploading, law enforcement must investigate any complaint by the copyright holders.
What the attorny said was that "they expect to find all kinds of material, ranging from music to child pornography".
The server also wasn't run by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), but was monitored by them with a "custom developed software".
Also, the operation of an edonkey server is legal in Germany.
Germany's copyright laws aren't that strict actually. It is still perfectly legal to copy a CD or MP3s from your neighbor or even a DVD you rented for private use. And you can make copys of these copys and share them with your family and friends and it's still legal. Of course the industry is constantly trying to change that. They managed to get an insanly stupid copyright act introduced, which makes it illegal to circumvent "effective technical copyright restriction". To this day, their is no clarifying judgment on what the heck is an effective restriction and what is not. After all, you could argue that as soon as the restriction is cracked, is isn't effective anymore.