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EU advocate general advises privacy protection

22 July 2007 9:58 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 3 comments

Advocate General Juliane Kokott, advising the European Court of Justice, said Wednesday that EU law directs governments to resist the disclosure of personal data on Internet traffic in civil cases.

A Spanish court hearing a case involving Promusicae, a group of Spanish music producers similar to the RIAA, had asked the EU court for guidance on what EU law allows.

Promusicae is trying to force Spanish ISP Telefonica to hand over the names and addresses of subscribers using IP addresses allegedly involved in sharing files on KaZaa. Telefonica maintained that it was unable to hand over the information unless it was connected to a criminal prosecution or dealt with matters of public security or national defense.

ECJ judges are expected to make their final ruling later this year. The judges follow the advocate general's recommendations in roughly 80 percent of cases, according to reports. Until the final ruling, Kokott's preliminary recommendation is non-binding.

Copyright holders in Europe may get help from a proposed revision to IPRED, the EU's IP law. If passed into law, the changes would make many forms of copyright infringement criminal rather than civil offenses, potentially making ISPs liable for copyrighted materials passed through their networks. The law would only cover "commercial" infringement, however, leaving individual file-sharers only at risk for civil cases.

Sources: Ars Technica, TechNewsWorld, PhysOrg.com

Permalink to this article

Legal downloads jump following IPRED in Sweden (12 April 2009)

EU court shoots down attempt to force ISP disclosure of customer data (29 January 2008)

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Discuss this article!
maxsixer (Junior Member) 22 July 2007 13:44
First < oh yeah see that! lol That would be a real balls if that happend in europe i hope it doesnt. be like policed internet [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 23 July 2007 19:27
I find that the EU will deal with this in the correct manner and this organization that wants the info will not get it if their motives are like this. [ + quote]
hughjars (Inactive) 24 July 2007 8:59
Hooray for the EU! Privacy is the minimum we ought to be able to count on. The sooner we get away from these dumb corporate day-dreams of a 'new' internet 2/3/4/5 etc etc (pointless, expensive and retrograde) moves to supposedly 'improve' the internet the better. We don't want or need this narrow idiotic version of the net with it's heavily policed and supposedly 'secure' BS (ie a net that is little more than yet another tedious advertising outlet & a dreary shopping mall in our houses). [ + quote]