EU Court Says File Sharers Don't Have To Be Named

Stony Stevenson writes "European Union countries can refuse to disclose names of file sharers on the Internet in civil cases, the EU's top court said. The European Court of Justice has ruled on a dispute between Spanish music rights holders association Promusicae and Spain's top telecoms operator Telefonica over Telefonica's Internet clients who shared copyright material on the Web. Telefonica argued that, under a national law based on EU rules, it only had to disclose the name of an Internet subscriber for criminal actions, not civil ones. But the court said: 'Community law does not require the member states, in order to ensure the effective protection of copyright, to lay down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings.' I wonder if this ruling will have any effect on other cases in other countries."

Comments

Re:Optional for each country

[Splab]

Damn you beat me to it. Here in Denmark the citizens aren't protected - so the 110 new cases the APG (RIAA/MPAA/BSA organization in Denmark) just submitted will go through.

Re:Optional for each country

[JoeInnes]

Correct. However, most ISP privacy policies state that they may be forced to disclose user information in criminal investigations. Therefore, it may be possible for people defending to get evidence dismissed. IANAL, and I'm not certain whether privacy policies are legally binding, or if the omission of "civil or" is significant.

Maybe someone who knows better than me can comment?

Criminal vs Civil

[Midnight Thunder]

Not being an expert here, could someone tell me the difference between a civil law and a criminal law? Is there any way for the file shares to be persued using criminal law?

I could search on the internet, but having an answer here would be useful to other readers of /.