EU Court Says File Sharers Don't Have To Be Named

Stony Stevenson writes "European Union countries can refuse to disclose names of file sharers on the Internet in civil cases, the EU's top court said. The European Court of Justice has ruled on a dispute between Spanish music rights holders association Promusicae and Spain's top telecoms operator Telefonica over Telefonica's Internet clients who shared copyright material on the Web. Telefonica argued that, under a national law based on EU rules, it only had to disclose the name of an Internet subscriber for criminal actions, not civil ones. But the court said: 'Community law does not require the member states, in order to ensure the effective protection of copyright, to lay down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings.' I wonder if this ruling will have any effect on other cases in other countries."

Optional for each country

Community law does not require the member states, in order to ensure the effective protection of copyright, to lay down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings.

Notice the wording: Member states are not *required*... but they can, if they wish, lay down such an obligation.

I wonder if this ruling will have any effect on other cases in other countries.

Probably not. The Spanish law doesn't require telcos to disclose the requested information (actually they would get in serious trouble if they provided it to third parties without a judge involved), and the EU said that said law is ok, but other countries could have a different law and that would be ok as well.

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Damn you beat me to it. Here in Denmark the citizens aren't protected - so the 110 new cases the APG (RIAA/MPAA/BSA organization in Denmark) just submitted will go through.

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Correct. However, most ISP privacy policies state that they may be forced to disclose user information in criminal investigations. Therefore, it may be possible for people defending to get evidence dismissed. IANAL, and I'm not certain whether privacy poli

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Indeed we can, unlike the US criminal system, any evidence encountered can and will be used against you (well at least in Denmark). The Danish police did some illegal searches during the problems with "Ungdomshuset" - during those searches they found drugs (mainly cannabis) those people will be fined even though the search was illegal, they where in possession of the drugs.

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I cannot speak for the rest of Europe, but at least in Belgium, illegally acquired evidence can not be used in court.

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Probably not. The Spanish law doesn't require telcos to disclose the requested information (actually they would get in serious trouble if they provided it to third parties without a judge involved), and the EU said that said law is ok, but other countries could have a different law and that would be ok as well.

In Spain, judges play the "God mode" role, there are almost no limits for them, and are the only ones that are able to request *private* held information. As user, Telefonica/Orange/Jazztel/ONO/BT/ya.com/COLT/whatever can not, in no case, provide private information to third parties other than to the case instructing judge. Both "Promusicae" and "SGAE" are RIAA-like private associations. In the case of "SGAE" (stands for "Sociedad General de Autores y Editores", that can be poorly translated as "Authors and Editors General Association" -theorethically a non profit association-), they get money as "canon" -as euphemism, because in Spain a private company can not emit taxes!- for every suitable media (CD/DVD-R*, Hard Disks, flash memory, etc.). In my opinion, Al Capone had, much better gang taste.

As side effect of the undercover taxing, most people buy media to other countries, not only avoid the "canon" (Al-Capone-like tax, as is being issued by a *private* organization), but also VAT and other taxes (!). That stupid measure is generating a huge black market of media, and hurting badly the little computer shops.

Media associations (RIAA an others) are pushing without thinking about that who make the laws are the same that buys the media. The boomerang is already going back, por borregos y avariciosos.

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This ruling will possibly have a huge impact in Sweden. This summer a proposition was introduced by the government to force ISPs to release IP adresses of suspected file sharers. The argument was that EU law required such a law, and that's clearly not the

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Please check your constitution, I hope that no civil law can override constitutional rights in Sweden (I know Jönköping and Stockholm, and so civilized country deserves a civilized carta magna), however, unconstitutional laws can be runned until

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IANAL, and i'm not sure how relevant it is, but as I understand it, unlike the states, precedents aren't so important in the EU.

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It depends what you mean by "the EU". Precedents aren't set by judicial decisions in the European Courts of Justice (ECJ), although it's fairly common for them to refer to prior decisions when making new ones. Not all EU member states operate in the same w

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Actually it does influence alot other countries, in Austria for example, the ISPA ( internet service providers association ) issued the statement that accordingly to this ruling, the ISP's do not have to give out any personal information about filesharers

Promusicae has screwed up

Not only for themselves, but also for every anti-filesharing organisation in Europe. This means that every anti-filesharing organisation will have a MUCH harder time suing people for God knows what. Meanwhile, the Dutch anti-fs org. is trying to act like n

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Unfortunately for you, the opposite is not quite true.

This court rulings says that European law does not require telcos to supply information, and it does not prohibit it either. Spain does not have any national law on the subject, so Telefonica are not r

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A criminal case requires a crime and I don't think you're going to be popular with the police if you keep accusing people of crimes just to get their name.

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So true, unfortunately this doesn't help French people because in our country IP violations are considered as criminal acts.

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The flip side of turning copyright infringement into a criminal act, is they have to prove you were guilty, not that an IP that your ISP automated systems was logged in as being from your account, was involved in an alleged copyright infringement.

They no

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Criminal cases usually require a more onerous 'burden of proof' than civil cases.

That's why sometimes, (in the UK at least) where people have not been convicted of crimes, their victims will pursue a civil case against them, because it's much easier to get

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I despair. This is supposed to be one of the few sites on the planet that has intelligent people, and yet all we get is "THE MAN CAN'T STOP US SHARING MUSIC!". Sorry, but The Man isn't the record execs on their £100k salaries, it's the musicians tr

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Not only for themselves, but also for every anti-filesharing organisation in Europe. This means that every anti-filesharing organisation will have a MUCH harder time suing people for God knows what. Meanwhile, the Dutch anti-fs org. is trying to act like n

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"he only exceptions are the UK " sorry but just plain WRONG http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/Civil [scotland.gov.uk] that's Scottish law which is seperate and discinct from english law i am sure if you look you'll find that england also has plenty civil law cases.

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I am sorry, I didn't want to offend the Scottish, of course the Scottish have a civil law system. I didn't want to mention that since my original comment was about the rest of Europe and not the UK so it would have been a little bit irrelevant here. Anyway

Yeah, right...

I wonder if this ruling will have any effect on other cases in other countries.

Not in the U.S., that's for sure. We don't care what them damn heathen furriners do in all them other countries...

Are we learning?

We had an article up a few days ago where a file-sharer hunting company was starting criminal cases to get the person's name, settling out of court, and dropping the case. Though forcing everyone to play hardball makes it interesting, is this really the b

The law will change

EU rules do not preclude the possibility for EU countries of laying down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings, it said.

"However, it does not compel the member states to lay down such an obligation," the court said.

It doesn't compel them to do so now. It doesn't mean that the EU won't change that law to be more stringent. What's even more likely though, is that the industry lobbies the EU and the law remains the same, but becomes attached to other conditions. Your country wants EU aid to help with communications infrastructure? Sure, but you'll need to comply with this law. It's the same way the drinking age changed to 21 in all the States; it became a requirement for Federal highway funds due to lobbying from MADD.

I predict the industry and anti-piracy lobby groups to focus on newer additions to the EU from Eastern Europe to do just this. These countries use more EU aid and can be painted as piracy hotbeds.

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"I predict the industry and anti-piracy lobby groups to focus on newer additions to the EU from Eastern Europe to do just this."

Be damn sure about it. It's *already* happening. Just alike RIAA or BSA, when you gain money in the hundreds of millions*1 bas

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"That's on a *public* TV."

TV companies in most of the world regard "piracy" as a threat to their own sources of revenue, so the fact that they transmit advertising for their own viewpoint disguised as news shouldn't surprise you or anyone else.

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"TV companies in most of the world"

Maybe the world "public" is not the one to be used here (sorry, I'm not English speaking). I meant a government-owned TV channel.

Criminal vs Civil

Not being an expert here, could someone tell me the difference between a civil law and a criminal law? Is there any way for the file shares to be persued using criminal law?

I could search on the internet, but having an answer here would be useful to other readers of /.

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Here is something describing criminal and civil law, in the USA though the definition is probably universal:

http://www.rbs2.com/cc.htm [rbs2.com]

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In criminal law, it is always the government that is taking up litigation against the other party. In civil law, it is another private individual or corporation that starts the litigation process. Intellectual property (patents/copyright) violations are an

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by definition criminal law governs crimes (felonies and misdemeanors). Crimes are offenses against the state. Civil law deals with private offenses, such as violations of contracts, and failure of professional duty. I think it is males difference clear to

Major Labels Backing File Sharing Sites?

I bet Sony BMG and Universal will back file sharing sites sooner than most think.

The question is not whether they'll do it but when. Everyone knows their position is getting weaker by the day, and the more DRM and restrictions and other technology they

2 words for the Media Associations

European Fail

westlaw / lexis

for those of us with westlaw and lexis is there an offical report/ trascript available? anyone have a citation?

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I don't know the ECJ's citation format, but the decision is announced and printed here: http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/gettext.pl?where=&lang=en&num=79919870C19060275&doc=T&ouvert=T&seance=ARRET [europa.eu] From there, the [citation? docket

In Germany there is a workaround already.

Local lawyers have already found a workaround for this obstacle. They first open a criminal case and receive the identity information from the police. Later they file the civil case.

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Local lawyers have already found a workaround for this obstacle. They first open a criminal case and receive the identity information from the police. Later they file the civil case.

Surely the police wont be happy that their resources are being used in a fraudulent manner.
Its unlikely that such a dubious relationship will continue unabated.

Wont work in the UK

Police need proof of a crime before they can request an exemption to acquire data that would otherwise be protected under the data protection act.

Not that it matters because both Labour and Conservatives are in the pockets of the music industry so they'll

OT: story tag

imsparticus ? It's Spartacus.