[Ecommerce] Court rules for German ISPs in P2P identities case

[Michelle Childs]

Court rules for German ISPs in P2P identities case
       Can withhold alleged filesharers' details
       http://go.theregister.com/news/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/17/hamburg_isp_ruling/

y Jan Libbenga
Published Tuesday 17th May 2005 15:39 GMT

ISPs in the state of Hamburg can't be forced to provide customer data to
record companies, even when illegal copying is suspected, at least for
now. The Higher Regional Court in Hamburg has ruled that there is no legal
basis for demanding customer data. ISPs, the court argues, aren't part of
the criminal act. They merely provide access to the web.

The Higher Regional Court overruled a earlier decision by the Hamburg
District Court, which had granted record companies access to customer data
after they discovered an FTP server where numbers by German band Rammstein
could be downloaded for free. The District Court based its ruling on the
German Copyright Act.

The Higher Regional Court in Hamburg, however, followed a similar ruling
by judges of the federal state of Hesse. Here too the court rejected the
claim by a music group to hand over the name of a customer who ran an
illegal music server.

Experts believe that the setback for the record industry is only temporary
as legislators in Germany are drafting a new Telemedia Act, granting the
recording industry more freedom in obtaining data from internet service
providers.

The developments in Germany are closely watched by experts in the
Netherlands. There the Dutch Protection Rights Entertainment Industry
Netherlands (BREIN) has just launched its largest round of lawsuits yet
targeting 42 individuals suspected of illegally swapping copyrighted
music.







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Michelle Childs -Head of European Affairs
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