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German Court: ISPs Must Hand Over File Sharer Info

itwbennett writes "The German Federal Court of Justice has ruled that ISPs have to turn over to rights-holders the names and addresses of illegal file sharers, but only 'if a judge rules that the file sharer indeed infringed on copyright,' said the court's spokeswoman, Dietlind Weinland. The ruling overturns two previous rulings by regional courts and is significant because the violation doesn't have to happen on a commercial scale, but applies whenever 'it is possible to know who was using an IP address at the time of the infringement,' the court said."

2 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"..know who was using an IP address..." ? by fisted · · Score: 5, Informative

    How did this become +5 Insightful? WTF? Is it because it contains the magic words "Europe doesn't have"?
    Except that our juridical System (fortunately) doesn't include a ridiculous entity like a "Grand Jury", the rest of the 5th Amendment does have an equivalent in Germany. The main difference being perhaps that it isn't an "Amendment" over here, which speaks for itself.

    Whatever.

  2. YOu ignoring what the OP said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    "most of europe does not have" which is wrong and what the GP was railing against. Instead you cocnentrated on the minutia. The fact is that that 5th amendment you seem so proud of, come mostly historically from the magna carta and UK law , hundreds of year before the US was even "discovered".

    "The Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to Magna Carta in 1215. For instance, grand juries and the phrase due process (also found in the 14th Amendment) both trace their origin to Magna Carta."

    So before you ask people to learn about history.... learn about yours. That 5th amendement you seem so proud of, comes from europe.