Victory for European filesharers

[Hallvor]

As you may or may not know, the European entertainment industry are trying to achieve what the RIAA, MPAA et.al. have been doing for years, namely getting personal data of filesharers from ISPs in order to threaten with civil lawsuits.

Recently, the entertainment industry suffered a crushing defeat in Germany, where a court in Offenbach followed the legal advice of the judicial director of the EU, Juliane Kokott, who stated in a case in Spain that ISPs may only reveal names of filesharers in case of criminal prosecution, where the offense is serious, and never in civil lawsuits.

Earlier this year, a court in Celle in Germany concluded the same, but argued that the degree of damage was insuffiscient. The judge was of the opinion that the entertainment industry was unable to prove that their losses were serious enough to justify such measures.

All in all, it looks as if the entertainment industry in Europe can`t copy the racketeering of their American counterparts.


http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/93376 (German)


Sorry if it came out a mess - English is not my first language.

[Kingsley]

Triumph für Deutschland.

[curuxz]

a proud achievement of our EU. hope its precedent in the UK too, should be if it was advice from the EU. !

[smoker]

good news

[Xcarma]

In Belgium ISP Scarlet has to block P2P networking on it's network after a lawsuit from Sabam.

So no victory over here...

[koshatnik]

In Belgium ISP Scarlet has to block P2P networking on it's network after a lawsuit from Sabam.

So no victory over here...

THats more of a case of the ISP giving in. The entertainment industy has to prove beyond doubt that filesharing is damaging sales - so far no one has been able to make that link. Several studies, one in Australia if I remember correctly, proved the opposite.

[PartisanEntity]

Good news, let us see how long it lasts.

[igknighted]

I'm torn. I agree that it is good that the entertainment industry cannot go around accusing everyone and getting all their internet info, but at the same time, reread your title for a second. Victory for european filesharers. Thats like me saying "Victory for american car thieves". Granted a car is worth more than a music file, but none the less you are stealing. Period, end of story. Music (like software) is only free to distribute if the author/artist says it is. If you don't like that, only listen to "FOSS" music so artists get the message. Or go write to your elected officials. Do something productive if you do not like the status quo... but if your choice is to steal, regardless of your moral views on the subject, you cannot be surprised or offended when they prosecute you.

Sorry, I know that isn't the topic of the thread, but the way the title was worded really bothered me.

[curuxz]

I'm torn. I agree that it is good that the entertainment industry cannot go around accusing everyone and getting all their internet info, but at the same time, reread your title for a second. Victory for european filesharers. Thats like me saying "Victory for american car thieves". Granted a car is worth more than a music file, but none the less you are stealing. Period, end of story. Music (like software) is only free to distribute if the author/artist says it is. If you don't like that, only listen to "FOSS" music so artists get the message. Or go write to your elected officials. Do something productive if you do not like the status quo... but if your choice is to steal, regardless of your moral views on the subject, you cannot be surprised or offended when they prosecute you.

Sorry, I know that isn't the topic of the thread, but the way the title was worded really bothered me.

Until they stop breaking the law their end I have no intention of supporting the law on the consumer end.

If the response by car owners were to make cars explode when you try and steal them I think we would all agree they are going way to far!

The music and film industry makes copyright laws far to strict, damages freedom with things like DRM and sues the little guys just to try and terrorise people into paying them money for crap like itunes which can only use with the associated overpriced hardware.

Another thing, while on the topic, that really gets me is the lies they send out. This is def true for the UK tho not sure about America, they keep playing adverts on films and dvd's saying "Piracy is a crime, punishable by 10 years in prison or an unlimited fine" or "downloading music is theft!" WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG its complete BS, they are totally abusing the law here and it amazes me our government is too spineless to step in and say something. PIRACY is copying films or music etc TO SELL and is a completely different crime from downloading music (ie via torrent) which is IP infringement and both not criminal and you can only sue for loss so around 50p per track or £10 per film that you can PROVE they downloaded. This attempt to scare people into thinking torrent downloads are piracy and the media having no grasp of the difference between criminal and civil law really annoys me.

When they start playing fair people will follow but if you flaunt the law you cant expect it to protect you.

[Tomosaur]

I'm torn. I agree that it is good that the entertainment industry cannot go around accusing everyone and getting all their internet info, but at the same time, reread your title for a second. Victory for european filesharers. Thats like me saying "Victory for american car thieves". Granted a car is worth more than a music file, but none the less you are stealing. Period, end of story. Music (like software) is only free to distribute if the author/artist says it is. If you don't like that, only listen to "FOSS" music so artists get the message. Or go write to your elected officials. Do something productive if you do not like the status quo... but if your choice is to steal, regardless of your moral views on the subject, you cannot be surprised or offended when they prosecute you.

Sorry, I know that isn't the topic of the thread, but the way the title was worded really bothered me.

File-sharing is not illegal. The upshot of prosecuting pirates is that legal filesharing is inhibited too. The upshot of monitoring / controlling tracker websites, for example, is that my own privacy is invaded and I become nothing more than a marketing oppurtunity or a criminal suspect. If I want to download open-source software via bit-torrent, for example, then if the website where I download the .torrent file is under surveillance or is otherwise complying with requests for user information, then my own privacy is at risk, and I am treated like a criminal even if I have done nothing illegal. The RIAA has, for example, targeted completely innocent people who have not pirated anything but who may have used a torrent website, or who may have downloaded parts of their files from users who DO pirate software.

If the entertainment industry's lawyers pursue people based on circumstantial evidence such as this (which they do, regularly), then they can cause massive amounts of damage to innocent people, who are forced to either settle out of court, despite not having done anything illegal, or spend tons of money in court defending themselves and then hope to recoup the costs. The ordinary people who are targeted by the entertainment industry generally have no means of defending themselves.

Aside from the problem of suing innocent people, there is also the issue of ethics of whether sharing copyright material is unethical and whether it should be illegal at all, but that's a whole different debate.

The short and shrift of it is that the entertainment industry cannot stop peple sharing copyright material except by stopping people sharing any kind of files at all (which they cannot do). It is not file-sharing which is the problem, it's the entertainment industry. Rather than adapting to a new world where sharing information is just the way we do things, they want to stop us from sharing anything at all, because if we can share, say, GPLd software, then we can also share music files. DRM is a massive failure and people do not want it, so the only way they can 'win' is to stop us sharing at all.