ISPs Have to Identify Alleged Pirates, EU Court Rules

enigmax
April 19, 2012
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A dispute over whether a Swedish ISP can be forced to hand over the details of one its subscribers to an anti-piracy group has just received its long-awaited ruling from the Europe’s highest court. A few moments ago the ECJ announced that there are no EU barriers which prevent the ISP handing over its customers’ private details to copyright holders.

Not long after Sweden’s controversial IPRED legislation became law in 2009, five book publishers handed a request for information to a local court.

The rightsholders, represented by anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån, wanted to force local ISP ePhone to hand over the personal details of a subscriber who allegedly stored more than 2000 audio books on his server, 27 of which breached the publishers’ copyrights.

In June that year the court ordered ePhone to provide the information but the ISP felt it would be wrong to comply, and instead took their case to the Court of Appeal. The ruling of the lower court was overturned on appeal and the case was sent to the Sweden’s highest court.

In the event even the Supreme Court couldn’t decide and it in turn forwarded the case to the European Court of Justice. A few moments ago the ECJ released its decision, one that is sure to please rightsholders.

The ECJ decided that there are no EU barriers which stop ePhone being ordered to provide the information as requested by Antipiratbyrån and the book publishers. The Court said that Swedish law strikes an appropriate balance between the rights of copyright holders and citizens’ rights to privacy.

Having obtained the decision from the ECJ, the case will now head back to Sweden’s Supreme Court.

“We feel very satisfied with this judgment. It is extremely important that we have received this message,” said Kristina Ahlinder, president of the Publishers’ Association.

“The important next step is that the Supreme Court gives us the authority, that the evidence is sufficient and that we have the right to share this information. The illegal publication that has occurred from this IP address is comprehensive,” Ahlinder added

If Sweden’s Supreme Court indeed decides that ePhone must hand over the information, it is not clear if the publishers are even ready to continue with a civil case against the alleged infringer. But of course, other entities such as the music and movie industries have been watching closely too, since it clarifies their position going forward. IFPI, among others, are welcoming the ruling.

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ANoi

“Publishers’ Association”

WOW….. clicking a button needs an “Association”

I published my thought
- Blackbeard
  
  “”Publishers’ Association”
  WOW….. clicking a button needs an “Association”
  
  I published my thought”Come and sue me! :D
  - ANoi
    
    Don’t steal my publishing’s bro !
    
    I have a $1000 overhead for every comment I publish
- Anonymous
  
  my friend’s mother earned $14545 the prior month. she been making cash on the internet and moved in a $416600 condo. All she did was get fortunate and put into work the directions explained on this website… http://onlinemoneycampaign.blogspot.in/
- Anonymous
  
  what Peter implied I am inspired that anybody can earn $9867 in 1 month on the internet. have you seen this web page>>> http://hireworker.wordpress.com/
Blah

That will be Sweden getting pay up or else. European Court of Inconsistent Justice
- Danny
  
  I was thinking the same.
  
  Sweden is now the next target for the multitude coprwrong litigation!
- Joshonandy
  
  It is a known fact that Despite the people of Sweden are for an open internet, the Sweden gouvernment and the Americans are one. It’s so bad that sometimes you think Sweden is one of the federal states of America.Always pity when gouverments are not by the people and for the people.
  - Asdf
    
    Sweden, America’s BFF.
    - Desu75
      
      More like America’s bitch.
http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

This has nothing to do with “justice”.
It’s yet another anti-social decision by the highest Court in our land /Planet that stupidly puts the rights of ‘ownership’ over the rights of people to share information freely and without restriction.

The Courts decision is quite simply anti-people, anti-knowledge and anti-innovational.
- Anyone
  
  which is sad
  up until now it was quite reasonable
- Dawwg
  
  There is a simple solution:
  
  1) Use non-Western VPN/Proxy solution without logging for real surfing.
  2) Install background-service that simulates ‘surfing’ 24/7, but times 1000. Not like a DoS, but just tens of thousand HTTP requests a day to ‘random’ sites.
  
  Now imagine everybody doing so … That way it will become technically (and financially ) infeasible for ISPs to log all the ‘automated spam HTTP requests’, effectively rendering the retention-requirements completely ineffective.
  
  It’s not a pretty solution, but it’ll work … a real legal solution is preferable ofcourse !
- Anonymous
  
  my buddy’s half-sister made $16109 past month. she works on the computer and moved in a $490100 home. All she did was get blessed and put to use the directions laid out on this web page… http://onlinemoneycampaign.blogspot.in/
Anonymous

lol even if they get the ip owners information they then need to prove that he/she was the one that commited the infringement on the ip

Publishers Assosciation and Antipiratbyrån
Please go Kill Yourselfs..
Krosis

New world order
- We Are Americans
  
  America
  
  Traveller: Hi I would like to book a flight to America
  Agency>Where from?
  America
  - dalulzing
    
    Try Canada =)
    - Buio
      
      Sorry sir, here is no fucking Mars. We have only East/West America, Euro America, Afro America and Equatorial America…
MadAsASnake

27? Out of 2000? 1.5%? The othe 1973 were not claimed to be infringing…?
- Danny
  
  “The illegal publication that has occurred from this IP address is comprehensive”
  
  Made me laugh!
Pianogamer

I have some plans for writing a novel, I’ve kinda reached the decision of having no paper copies… at least, there will be no copyrights had by companies. I think the whole rating/advertisement could be done in reddit style, where people upvoted good books to the top, and perhaps commented helpfully the bad manuscripts. The distribution could be torrents and “donation sales”, without middle men. Even it the profits were reduced, they would only need to be a few percent of what would required to feed publishers/etc.
(If I finish the book I’ll look into this.)
- Anyone
  
  since the author gets less than $1 from a $40 book that is being published by a publisher you really can’t do much worse on the internet with selfpublish
- http://www.cheapassfiction.com/ Aelius Blythe
  
  I like that a lot.
  
  Sounds like Authonomy. There, manuscripts move up and down through some mysterious algorithm and the top ones get a review from Harper Collins people. I was on there until I realized I didn’t give a fck what SOPA-supporting HC thought of my work. (Yeah, they were on the list.)
  
  Also, torrents for writers are like crosses to vampires. They are scared shtless of “theft.” On Authonomy, its even impossible to copy and paste any of the text on the site, which is a MAJOR pain in the ass for critiques because it makes quoting laborious to the point of why-the-hell-try.
  
  But a pirate-run/reddit-esque version would be fantastic. I would be on a site like that in two seconds… any volunteers to start one? ;-)
  - starwars
    
    Then, some weeks later the FBI together with your local police storm into your home, accusing you of money laundering and extradites you to the US *cough*megaupload*cough* :)
    
    But in all seriousness, the internet should take over the industry. The world doesn’t need the old dinosaur companies.
  - Rhidian
    
    I likes ya words :)
    Handy hint though.. it’s still a pain .. but you can C&P from Authonomy ^_^
    You cannot select specific text though, just the whole page (Ctrl +A) and then paste into a text editor and select the bits ya likes.. round about, pain in the arse etc etc etc but ya can do it :)
    
    I’d post an example .. but probably *gosh* get sue’d ;p
    
    Peace out !
Guest

I’m with the Court on this one. It’s not their place to create new laws, simply interpret existing ones. There are no EU laws that prevent ISP’s giving law enforcement or copyright agencies the info the ISP’s customer gave the ISP (name, address, etc.).

If you don’t like the law, as I don’t, fine, but don’t hate the Court for doing what it can with shitty laws. It’s not their fault the laws exist.
- MadAsASnake
  
  I think the problem here is that the ISP knows that the named individually is not necessarily the infringer. If s/he was, I would agree with you.
Anonymous

all the other ‘entertainment industries’ will be jumping on this decision like flies on shit, even though in the majority of cases the actual person cannot be identified. the best bet is to shut the internet down completely. let all countries find out exactly how many companies then have to close down, how many jobs are lost and exactly how much revenue is lost in tax and is paid out in benefit to those that would then be unemployed. the only way to hit these industries is in the pocket. the only way to hit the governments is in the same way. if not, we might just as well give up. governments want to (undoubtedly will!) spy on every aspect of our lives, then hand details to whomever wants them. to even hope for any sort of privacy and human rights to remain is wishful thinking.
- http://otester.myopenid.com/ PiRat
  
  What you need to do is get your governments in shape, forget hitting them in the pockets, they have endless pockets, the bankers own the media industry, you need to fight back against the government, get these stupid laws overturned and kick the bankers out of your countries.
http://mickstarify.clavid.com/ Mick

Great, now whenever someone needs to get our identity from our IP, they simply need to “ALLEDGE” we pirated some of there shitty copyright goods
- Pirate Pontén
  
  Hey, you stole my comment. Please send your personal information to me so I can sue you!
- Anonymous
  
  and no one would abuse this, would they!!
Guest

The problem is that the EC Data Retention directive only contemplates the retention of trafick data for criminal law enforcement purposes. Giving a civil litigant access to information retained for criminal investigation is a slippery slope.The court commits judicial activism by allowing use of the data retention in civil litigation.
Anonymous

Let’s see I don’t quite understand this move by ECJ when a few months ealier they rule in the oposite way in the case “Sabam vs Scarlet”:
http://torrentfreak.com/european-court-isps-cant-spy-on-pirating-customers-111124/

Where is the difference here Ernesto?
- Anonymous
  
  SABAM wanted the ISP to monitoring the traffic and if a copyright violation is detected, preventing their customer from sharing. This case is about a Swedish law that gives the MAFIA industry the right to force an ISP to give them customer information related to an IP and during a time frame. EJC was the find out if the Swedish law IPRED was contrary to the EU (or European?) law.
- Anonymous
  
  The question is what do they have in common? (Apart from being copyright cases)
  - Sabam / Scarlet was a case where a national court ordered ISPs to monitor all of its users activity, decide what is infringing in a flow of assumed private data, report them and sanction them, all of this at the expense of ISPs alone.
  - This one is a case where one copyright holder representative monitors activity in public exchanges (or so I hope for them, otherwise they’re just out for a world of hurt themselves), chooses one user, inventories his offered files and asks for this single user’s id, all at their own expenses (apart from the actual identification).
  
  So what’s different?
  - all users vs one user
  - automation vs direct checking
  - the point at which monitoring is done
  - who decides what’s infringing
  - who ends up paying the bill
  And that’s surely not all, folks.
Andrew Lee

So you live in a house with 9 other people and the person that gets the bill does not even own a computer what do you do? I’ll tell you let them take one for the team since nobody that was actually wronged really gives a fuck as long as there is a body in the courtroom to place blame on.
Anonymous

If there isn’t clear law in Sweden or Europe protecting the private information of ISP customers from release to private third parties based on allegations (and meaningful penalties for false claims to such information), there really should be.

This ruling will make the copyright monopolies happy; but, the more important question is whether the coming abuses will finally awaken ISP customers to the need for a clean sweep in the legislatures to put in new politicians and customer oriented rules.

If ISP customer’s response is to continue sleeping the sleep of the dead, then the dead hand of these copyright monopolists will only get heavier and heaivier.
Privacy Killers

What does this mean ?
If I want to know the identity of someone I dislike online,
I can create a copyrighted video clip, name it to bait him/her,
torrent it, if he/she takes the bait
I can find out where he/she lives ?

Lack of privacy can kill …
- Cyclical
  
  No, you don’t need to have them share your file, you only need to allege that they shared it. Excellent news for stalkers everywhere!
  - President Obama
    
    Someone should accuse some “important” people of this, and watch the spectacle ensue.
    That ought to give them some perspective on this stupidity.
- Anonymous
  
  It would be really interesting to find out! I wonder if there are any other laws that can be used to punish those who falsely accuse or under false pretense obtains access to personal data? PUL would be a possible law to apply. I doubt there is any severe punishment. If so it would not be in parity with copyright laws!
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http://twitter.com/Anime4PSP Anime 4 PSP

wow, 27 of 2 damn thousands . they have nothing better to do ? -_-
Anonymous

lol, who cares about what some EU kangaroo court says? lol.
Dat-Anon.tk
Anonymous

Well, the title is slightly wrong.
EU Court concluded that nothing in EU laws prevents ISPs from complying to such demands. It doesn’t mean that ISPs have to hand over data by EU law, just that if a ruling from a national court has them do it, EU won’t object. Europe itself doesn’t order it though.
Anonymous

Get your internet put in your dog’s name :)
- Aaaaa
  
  personnummer
  - Fredrika
    
    > “personnummer”
    
    A seller of an Internet connection does not have to obtain and store your personal information, like for instance your personnummer, to sell you a connection. They can simply get payment anonymously in advance, and they won’t need any of your personal information. There are already ISP’s that sells connections in that manner in Sweden.
- http://www.sensibilium.com/ Sir Oblong of Orange
  
  Not sure any ISP would accept Jelly Belly as a subscriber. Even if my bank is lax enough to provide her with a cheque book!
Fokcispa

This is starting to look like its gonna end in something like the 1920′s-1930′s alcohol prohibition, its gonna end up with huge “mafia” kingpins trading and selling but in this case, cheap information; I sometimes wonder if the entertainment industries do not have this as their final goal.
It really becomes fishy when you see that Cnet (owned by CBS) promoted filesharing software (I saw a video of a guy telling this just forgot the link).
The future might look like “legit” purchases and “pirate” cheaper purchases both coming from the same vendor…That makes sense to me.
- Asdf
  
  You never know if when the MPAA decided to settle their lawsuit with Hotfile, it was because they secretly bought Hotfile behind the curtains.
Desu75

Sweden is losing its purpose. WHy not just get rid of countries all together and all fly the flag in Futurama?
Mwhahaha

You know they’d open your mail too if they could get away with it.
Mwhahaha

and cavity search you everytime you got home
PelouzeTF

This pleases me greatly. All that cocksucking finally paid off.
Lol

wat? just wat?

EU is corrupt as fuck
lol

that is why the eu commission wanted to give acta to ecj before the eu parliament wil discuss it, because the ecj is corrupted as fuck just as the commission
tonyj

ECI or ECJ?
http://www.sensibilium.com/ Sir Oblong of Orange

Ridiculous, on the one hand the courts say it’s against EU Privacy Laws, and then another says it’s not? What kind of fucktarded system are we supporting here?
Steve

The article headline is quite misleading. As stated in the text, “The ECJ decided that there are no EU barriers which stop ePhone being ordered to provide the information [...]“. They do not say ISPs have to identify file sharers, they say there is no EU law that prohibits that and thus national laws apply / ISPs are bound to their national laws.
- Anonymous
  
  Except that IPRED is a national law in Sweden.
  
  However…the Data Retention Directive otoh specifies that the stored data may NOT be delivered as part of an IPRED transaction if I understand what the most senior lawmen in the EU have to say. As no sane ISP is likely to retain two identical databases of storage just because the media industry would want them to, what can be delivered under IPRED will be null.
  
  Until they change the law to mean that the DRD data can be used in civil cases as well and not only for criminal offenses. At which point citizen rights of privacy will well and truly be gone.
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