Swedish ISP Refuses To Give Up IP Addresses; Appeals Court Order
from the fighting-IPRED dept
Earlier this year, you may recall that strict new "anti-piracy" legislation went into effect in Sweden, which required ISPs to hand over IP addresses and other info they had on people. Because of this, some ISPs have been proactive in deleting log files. But, a bigger question may be whether or not such rules violate user privacy. It appears that the Swedish courts are going to need to sort this out. The first ISP who was asked for IP address info in Sweden under this new IPRED law, Ephone, is appealing the court order to hand over the data, even though it faces huge fines for not complying. The case is a little different than a typical file sharing case in that it involves an attempt to find out who's running a particular server on which certain content was stored. However, Ephone points out that the server itself required a password to access, and thus the content was not made publicly available -- and thus, was not copyright infringement. Not surprisingly, Ephone's customers have made it clear to the company that they support it in protecting their privacy.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: file sharing, ip, ipred, privacy, sweden
Companies: ephone
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
An ISP should be transparent in all directions, in that it shouldn't filter content, but it also shouldn't attempt to play legal games such as this. The server is on your network (and in your data center), you are responsible for it. If you want to pass that responsibility onto a customer (who is leasing the server space), then you need to name them or provide relevant information.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
/M
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The privacy of citizens is more important than the profit margins of the RIAA.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
When most people use the word "transparent" they are often referring to things that affect public policy at large, like the fact that Obama shouldn't be discussing the ACTA in secret but he should be more transparent on the subject ( http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090614/1819325224.shtml ).
When modern republicans use the word "transparency" they mean the authorization of rich and powerful entities to arbitrarily invade the privacy of poor and powerless people any time they want without good reason or warrant (ie: George Bush and his wiretapping agenda) for the sake of exploiting them for political and economic gain and for them not to punished for doing so. This use of the word by modern republicans is deceptive at best and isn't going to help me vote republican (though I'm not voting democratic either, so don't think I'm defending democrats).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
This isn't about personal privacy. Oh yeah, the pirating people would like you to think that, but really it is just about the pirates trying to find another way to steal stuff and be hidden. Obviously, they wouldn't be so bold if their hosting company was more honest about who is using a given server.
Nobody is asking for a widespread invasion of privacy, just asking that the hosting company in question provide the information as the courts have deemed needed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Provided that there is probable cause which is exactly what's being disputed at the moment.
"This isn't about personal privacy."
Yes it is.
"Oh yeah, the pirating people would like you to think that, but really it is just about the pirates trying to find another way to steal stuff and be hidden."
It doesn't matter what the "pirating people" would like me to believe, society shouldn't allow an invasion of personal privacy without probable cause just to support the profit margins of special interest groups.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
i couldn't agree more. it's hard enough keeping my piratebay money hidden in offshore accounts as it is.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Huh????
Wow! That may be the poorest understanding of copyright law that I have ever seen.....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Huh????
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Huh????
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Huh????
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Password Protected?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Password Protected?
Like many of the stories Mike links to, this one does lack a ton of information, makes it easier I think for Mike to make his points later on (this story will be linked in the future as "ISPs refuse to give up data").
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Password Protected?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Exactly what happened, no one knows because the anti-pirates doesn't want to share their "methods" with the world. For some reason. But I wouldn't be surprised if they either payed someone to give them their login, or hacked in. The anti-pirates in Sweden have a history of unlawful and unethical methods.
But back to Ephone, of course, this is just ONE side of the story. As some one already pointed out, they want a "clear and proven case". And also, many swedes have anyother perspective to this. The new law is just one of many laws that either has already been implemented or will be, that is viewed as a violation of integrity.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"Exactly what happened, no one knows because the anti-pirates doesn't want to share their "methods" with the world."
by Anonymous Coward - Jul 16th, 2009 @ 5:39am
"An ISP should be transparent in all directions, in that it shouldn't filter content, but it also shouldn't attempt to play legal games such as this."
The anti pirates would like all alleged pirates to be transparent and have everything about themselves revealed to the public but then they themselves want to be opaque and are OK with it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Court Orders are meant to be backed by "probable cause " before they granted.
Otherwise anyone could get them at anytime to invade someone else privacy
Though the whole "not publicly available because behind a password thus not a copyright violation" argument sounds so dumb I highly doubt it is accurate, sounds more like reporter not understanding what he is talking about
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The ISP has ONE responsibility, above all others, and that is to its users. Why the hell should it give out information on one of its users to the content industry, when the law is just brand new, never been tried.
I forgot to mention earlier, this new law also, weirdly, goes against another law (or so the ISPs claim). The "Data Protection Directive," which says that personal information should not be stored digitally, or something like that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ephone won the appeal
The decision was not unanimous (3 against 2). One of the judges who supported the overturning of the previous decision was Kristina Boutz who has as of late been accused of bias in the Pirate Bay trial (although I think those allegations have been dismissed).
The court's press release (in Swedish)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Thanks
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Reply
[ link to this | view in chronology ]