EU Court Of Justice Says ISPs Can Be Forced To Reveal Info On Accused Infringement

from the no-privacy-violations dept

A few years ago, we wrote about how Swedish ISP ePhone was refusing to hand over info on its subscribers who were accused of infringement, arguing that the country's IPRED (IP enforcement) law was in violation of EU law. That case bounced around the Swedish courts before hitting the EU Court of Justice, who recently decided that it is perfectly reasonable for ISPs to be ordered to hand over customer info -- if certain specific conditions are met to keep it in-line with the EU data retention rules.

While perhaps somewhat unfortunate from a privacy perspective, I don't actually find the ruling to be that surprising, and the impact is not all that far-reaching. It's pretty well-established that companies can be compelled to give up private info on people as part of a legal dispute. The larger concern should be over the standard of evidence required before such info is handed over (and also whether or not the accused has the opportunity to anonymously fight the release of info, should he or she believe that the release would be in error). The EU Court of Justice has had some good rulings lately, pushing back on copyright maximalism, but this particular ruling isn't really all that surprising, given the details. In fact, the full ruling suggests that it was tackling a very narrow question that really changes little. It doesn't even say that such info should always be given up -- just that, if certain conditions are met, it could be legal to require ISPs to hand it over.

Filed Under: data retention, eu court of justice, european union, ipred, sweden
Companies: ephone

Swedish Court Backs ISP In Not Handing Over Data On Accused 'Pirate'

from the nice-to-see-some-sanity dept

Earlier this year, Sweden put its anti-piracy IPRED law into effect, and earlier this summer we noted that the ISP ePhone was refusing to give up a user's IP address, and appealing a court ruling ordering it to do so. The details of the specific case suggested a unique circumstance, involving a server that supposedly contained infringing material -- but which was never made public. It was always behind a password and thus, Ephone argued, there was no infringement. While the lower court disagreed, the appeals court has overturned the lower ruling, saying that probable cause for infringement had not been shown. Given some of the recent rulings in the Swedish court system on copyright issues, it's nice to see a court not just accept the entertainment industry's claims on some of these things...

Filed Under: copyright, ipred, sweden
Companies: ephone

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.

Filed Under: file sharing, ip, ipred, privacy, sweden
Companies: ephone