EU Court Rules in Favor of File Sharers

The legal aspect of the Internet is still in between the white and black, somewhere in that hazy grey area. As a result, many of the claims being made by one or another, regarding crimes on the web, have a long and difficult documentation process before actually going to court.

Reuters reports that the European Court of Justice has just settled a dispute between two Spanish companies, music rights holders Promusicae and telecom operator Telefonica, regarding whether the latter is obliged to disclose the names of its users that had contributed to piracy by sharing the former's content. The ruling went in favor of Telefonica, who claimed that, under a national law backed by the European Union's rules, it only had to present the names of its subscribers for criminal and not civil actions.

"Community law does not require the member states, in order to ensure the effective protection of copyright, to lay down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings," the court said in a statement, quoted by Reuters.

The process goes back to when KaZaA was used for such devious acts, and Promusicae wanted to start civil proceedings against the culprits. The reason it wanted to push this into the civil area of the law was that it was basically cheaper, but it also required lesser proof in order to get a conviction. The court said that the European Union rules guided the decision, but did not "preclude the possibility for EU countries of laying down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings," neither did they compel the states that form it to lay down such an obligation.

Truth be told, until serious and harsh rules or guidelines are brought forth for everybody to see, there will always be this hazy mist that I've mentioned earlier.