Danish ISPs Get Win That Could End Copyright Trolling In Denmark

from the this-is-the-end dept

We have talked in recent years how the scourge of copyright trolling has hit the nation of Denmark particularly hard. While trolling operations started off about the same as they do elsewhere in the world, their requests to unmask ISP customers soon ramped up to enormous levels. It was enough to turn two ISP rivals into allies, with Telenor and Telia fighting in court for their respective customers' privacy rights. After an initial loss, the companies appealed up the legal chain and managed to get a win with the court siding with the ISPs' privacy concerns over the copyright trolls' nefarious business model. After that, one of the copyright trolls appealed to Denmark's Supreme Court, hoping to reverse the decision once again.

It didn't work. The Supreme Court is refusing to hear the case, potentially putting an end to copyright trolling in Denmark.

Unfortunately for the trolls, their hopes were shattered this week when the committee responsible for references to the Supreme Court said it would not be putting the case forward.

As a result, the May 7th decision of the Østre Landsret will stand, with Telenor and Telia no longer required to cooperate with parties involved in trolling cases.

As the article notes, the ISPs will no longer have to cooperate with copyright trolls moving forward. And that really should be the end of copyright trolling entirely, as the whole business model hinges on ISPs being forced to give up their customer information so that those customers can be targeted with the threat letters that have milked so much money from the public. This of course doesn't mean that these ISPs will never be required to hand over customer information. Rather, such unmasking can only occur at the request of police investigating criminal conduct.

Telenor Denmark’s Legal Director, Mette Eistrøm Krüger, welcomed the decision.

“Both personally and on behalf of our customers, I am really glad that we are being strictly ruled by the National Court’s decision, and we once again find that logging data should only be handed over to the police to combat serious crime,” he told Version2.

And so now we're left to hope that the rest of the world's courts will catch up to the pro-consumer stance taken by the legal system in Denmark.

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Filed Under: copyright, copyright trolling, denmark, isps, privacy
Companies: telenor, telia


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  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:23pm

    out_of_the_blue/dumbass TOR nickname is not going to like this, is he?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
      identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:52pm

      Re:

      Lol. Good to see you ankle-biters never change.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
        identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 9:36pm

        Re: Re:

        John Steele says "hi", by the way. He's got a message from Paul Duffy, saying he's got a seat saved for you.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Mensa #17: Decipher this rebus: 7 + 1 = 8 &!, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:51pm

    Fabricating the record so fanboys have a safe space.

    WHY do you re-write only Torrent Freak's good news for pirates?

    Rhetorical Question. Everyone knows Techdirt is pro-pirate.

    Just going back a couple weeks to see what you've intentionally IGNORED:

    TheISOZone: Yet Another Retro Gaming Site Shuts Down

    Pirate TV Box Seller Sentenced to 16 Months in Jail

    RIAA Complaint Shuts Down YouTube-Ripper MP3Fiber

    Pirate IPTV Seller on Facebook Ordered to Pay œ50,000

    LoveROMS Owner Hopes to Settle Nintendo's Copyright Lawsuit

    TorrentFreak is Blocked as a Pirate Site and Hacking Resource

    *TVAddons and Dish Network Settle Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

    Cox Pays Substantial Settlement to End `Repeat Infringer' Piracy Lawsuit

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:59pm

      Re: Fabricating the record so fanboys have a safe space.

      You gonna cry again when this gets moderated?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        floort, 30 Aug 2018 @ 6:09am

        Re: Re: Fabricating the record so fanboys have a safe space.

        You gonna cry again when this gets moderated?

        That's not moderation, it's censoring.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 30 Aug 2018 @ 6:42am

          Re: Re: Re: Fabricating the record so fanboys have a safe space.

          Gonna take yer soapbox n go home?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    That One Guy (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 10:32pm

    1-Hit K.O.

    If 'you're not allowed to make accusations of illegal activity based upon seriously weak evidence and demand personal information from it' is enough to sink the 'business model' it shows just how weak their position was in the first place. They never should have been able to game the legal system to shake people down in the first place, but it's nice that the scheme has likely been killed off in one county.

    Now, if that sort of thinking could just spread to other countries infested with parasites like that...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 30 Aug 2018 @ 5:59am

      Re: 1-Hit K.O.

      This case is just burning its dead remains. It has as much to do with copyright infringement becoming a public court matter and an increasing pressure from political side, consumer protection agencies and more than a bit of scepticism towards it among the legal scholars.

      This was a last desperate attempt from only Njord Law Firm to protect their sweet gig from getting overtaken by the police. OPUS accepted the demise without appealing. But, damn, Njords name is smelling bad from doing this shakedown-scheme. A shame they are atop EUs list on corporate law.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Othello, 29 Aug 2018 @ 10:53pm

    Is there something rotten

    in the State of Denmark?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Aug 2018 @ 6:06am

    "And that really should be the end of copyright trolling entirely,"

    Once again TD just does not understand. This is only a setback, they will find other ways to copyright troll. Lets just sit back and see what happens.

    There is a reason we hire cops full time instead of once to arrest all the bad guys and quit.

    *Eternal Vigilance*

    This is just one of many attempts that will need to be quelled.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Stephen T. Stone (profile), 30 Aug 2018 @ 6:21am

      This is only a setback, they will find other ways to copyright troll.

      Now that the courts are onto the trolls’ game and the ISPs no longer have to hand over subscriber information to the trolls, finding a new way to exploit copyright for a quick buck is now a task left to the masters of the art. I am, of course, referring to Disney.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 30 Aug 2018 @ 6:45am

      Re:

      They will probably try the pre-crime route, pay for some pre-infringement software so that the pirates can be rounded up before they steal from the starving artists.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Christenson, 30 Aug 2018 @ 7:34am

      Re: Next Trolling

      Hmm...looking for a mousey rootkit installed via a buggy implementation of the file format with a phone-home feature.

      But not sure how the big boys are gonna distance themselves from copyright enforcement toxicity.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Aug 2018 @ 6:26am

    sure hope so and that the win filters through to other countries, ending it completely, everywhere. it needs to be stopped!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Aug 2018 @ 1:10pm

    I wish I read "Danish ISPs Get Win That Could End Copyright"...

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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