James Delahunty
14 Oct 2005 13:24
Film and music companies have been given the green light in Sweden to resume collecting data about file sharers who are spreading copyrighted works illegally on P2P networks. The Swedish Anti-Pirate Bureau (APB)B and other organizations such as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) have been given permission to collect the IP addresses by the Swedish Data Inspection Board (DI). Earlier the DI had ruled that the data collecting methods in use were a violation of privacy rights and also illegal because only government authorities could keep registers of criminal offenses.
However now both the APB and IFPI have been granted exception from the law. "The organizations' collection of IP numbers does not constitute an undue infringement of personal integrity," DI argued in a press release. Björn Gregfeldt, chairman of APB said that the ruling meant the fight against illegal file sharing could begin immediately. "We have never kept a register of personal details," he said. "We can restart our operations pretty much immediately, and maybe now we’ll be able to persuade Internet service providers that they have to take this problem seriously."
The two organizations hadn't actually been keeping a register of offenses beforehand anyway, they were simply sending the information onto the relevant ISPs.
Source:
The Local