James Delahunty
12 Jul 2005 16:02
Dutch anti-piracy organisation Brein (you may remember them for being responsible for the shutting down of ShareConnector) had their plans dealt a huge blow today when a Dutch judge ruled that ISPs did not have to hand over subscriber details of file sharers. The file sharers in question are being accused of sharing copyrighted material illegally on P2P networks, but for now Brein just has the IP addresses of these users. They approached the ISPs first asking them to give the details but were met with opposition.
Not one of the five ISPs gave Brein the details and said that only a criminal trial court could demand such details from them. The case was brought to a civil court in the city of Utrecht where the Judge made the decision that he would not order the ISPs to give the details because he believed the plaintiffs had not met the necessary conditions to warrant such an order.
"Brein has sought help from a research company, which has looked at the shared folders on computers of the file swappers. In that process it may have accessed private files," the judge said in the court ruling. This is yet another case where a Judge has ruled for privacy over piracy. "The judge does not deem this correct, because according to Dutch law, privacy is insufficiently protected in the United States," the ruling said.
Brein represents 52 media companies in total including EMI, Sony Music and Universal Studios. Brein manager Tim Kuik said he would take his case to a higher court. The attorney for the ISPs, Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm said the ruling was an important victory for the privacy of Internet users. "Private organizations cannot start sniffing around on someone else's computer and collect data," he said.
Source:
Reuters