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Potentially Huge Legal Boost for EU File Traders
Mishtara2001 writes "BusinessWeek reports that a high court adviser in the EU has decided that ISPs are not required to reveal information to authorities, when users are suspected of music piracy. If this is adopted across the EU then it can potentially spell doom for the IFPI's (the global RIAA) efforts to litigate against European P2P users. From the article: 'Promusicae wanted the personal data so that it could start taking legal action against the file sharers, but Telefonica claimed that it could only turn over such information as part of a criminal prosecution or in matters of public security and national defense. A Spanish court hearing the case referred the issue to the ECJ for guidance on how to interpret EU law on the subject and Ms Kokott's legal opinion is the advice for the ECJ judges who will eventually rule on a recommendation for the Spanish court to take. The final court decision is expected later this year. Once it comes out, it could form the basis for similar decisions throughout the 27-member EU bloc.'"
The countries in the EU have to store telecommunications data for 0.5 to 2 years.
In Germany this data will also be used in cases of copyright infringement (at least, that's what the current proposal says). Also a matter with the new law, there is no judge required for the police to get the data.
True, mod parent up. Here in France, the CNIL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNIL) which as of now did a very good job as a garant of data privacy recently surrendered and opened the doors to a new form of sanction for the P2P file sharers : a fine automatically sent to the offender... Just like automatic radars on the highway, bots would look for sharers of $LIST_OF_CURRENT_POPULAR_TRACKS, store the IP addresses and Of course ISP collaboration is needed. That's still a project, but, according to TFA at least, we're apparently not going in the same direction than Bruxelles... And yeah we already pay taxes on recordable media anyway, for storage devices I think it's not voted *yet*. They're also talking about taxing bandwidth (well, contracts to ISPs selling DSL or cable)... Oh, and owning a DVD ripping software, for example, is illegal. I work in the video field and we need that kind of tools. Lots of nonsense in our local copyright/P2P/DRM laws so don't worry, you're not alone.
On the other hand, here in Belgium it was ruled by a judge last week that one of the internet providers (Scarlet) should install a filter on its customers' data traffic to prevent them from downloading copyrighted material:
http://www.legalday.com/commentaries/clintons/SA_S carlet_Internet_Sharing.html
And they plan to take the other ISPs to court as well if they don't install those filters. Luckily, the ISPs don't like to do that, due to high costs and because one could easily circumvent it. But if the court orders it...
Let's just see where it will go...
Exactly. The point here is that in Spain it seems there is no existing law that could compel telefonica to reveal this information, so the copyright owner tried to use EU ISP data retention laws. The EU (correctly) stated that these laws don't apply, because they're only for criminal cases.
But the thing is, in most of Europe there are existing laws or procedures. For instance, here in the UK, the copyright holder would start a claim against an unnamed defendant, and ask the court to issue a Norwich Pharmacal Order to the ISP requiring them to identify the user. It's not an EU law that enables this, hence the EUCJ has no say in the matter.
The fact that nobody should be able to peek at my personal data or internet usage unless a court orders it is so self-evident that I don't see why it even deserves a mention.
The point is that the court was asked to order it, and decided that it had no authority to do so. That *is* relevant.
actually it is the other way around. ISPs are not required to give information to private institutions in civil cases. the summary is misleading.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
Except Europe was never party to the Magna Carta of the English. What's more is that European countries belong to the Civil Law tradition (based on Roman law) and never shared the same system as the English. European countries of course had similar charters, but the EU would never, ever have any reason to uphold Magna Carta.
P.S. The document commonly known as Magna Carta today is not the 1215 charter, but a later charter of 1225, and is usually shown in the form of The Charter of 1297 when it was confirmed by Edward I.