James Delahunty
27 Jan 2005 21:42
German ISPs do not have to hand over the personal details of subscribers who offer downloads of music files on the web, a Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt ruled this week. This will be a small blow to any future lawsuits against P2P users who upload music. The Court overturned a lower court order to reveal personal information about an ISP customer who operated an illegal music server from his home. According to the court, an ISP only provides access to the web and do not have to monitor any data that is being sent through its network, they only have to block access when they learn of illegal content.
In the U.S., thousands of people have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for uploading music on P2P networks like Kazaa and eDonkey2000. At first the RIAA forced ISP's to hand over information on a subscriber, which they would then use to file a lawsuit. This changed however in many states, and RIAA were forced to file anonymous "John Doe" lawsuits against users before they could receive any details.
Source:
The Register