EU court says file sharers don't have to be named
So...under EU law, a court recently found that Internet Service Providers need not provide personally identifiable information in civil cases. This has huge impact on the general strategy of the RIAA, which has been to file "John Doe" cases and expect that the ISPs involved will simply hand over the names and other information of those that the RIAA suspects (reasonably or not) of trading copyrighted material online. The actual impact of this decision is somewhat limited, but when combined with recent statements by an EU regulator that IP addresses should be treated as personally identifiable information, it marks a pretty significant difference in public policy between the EU and the good ol' US of A.
So...under EU law, a court recently found that Internet Service Providers need not provide personally identifiable information in civil cases. This has huge impact on the general strategy of the RIAA, which has been to file "John Doe" cases and expect that the ISPs involved will simply hand over the names and other information of those that the RIAA suspects (reasonably or not) of trading copyrighted material online. The actual impact of this decision is somewhat limited, but when combined with recent statements by an EU regulator that IP addresses should be treated as personally identifiable information, it marks a pretty significant difference in public policy between the EU and the good ol' US of A.
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