14 DAY TRIAL // The case started by Promusicae, a Spanish music organization, against the telecommunications company Telefonica and concerning the file sharing application KaZaA, was brought back in the spotlights on Wednesday due to some EU officials' statement. If you didn't know it yet, let me present the story so far: Promusicae sued Telefonica because some of its customers accessed the Internet using KaZaA and distributed pirated copies of its creations. In the complaint filed a long time ago, Promusicae demanded the telecommunications company to provide private information about the users in order to sue them.
Promusicae avoided offering a clear answer so the case was moved to the court and this was meant to make the telecommunications firm reveal some of the private details concerning the users.
Today, advocate general Juliane Kokott said for Reuters that the European telecommunications companies are not forced to offer private details about the users unless they really want to do that. That's why it is expected to see an expansion of the case since Telefonica refuses to reveal the required information.
However, this is another prove that Internet companies might get your private details anytime but you're 100 percent safe as long as you're not downloading pirated content or you're not distributing illegal material.
In the past, a similar case involved YouTube, the famous online video sharing service that was required to offer sensitive information about a user who uploaded pirated copies of 24, a Fox creation, even before it was officially launched in the United States. Fox sent a subpoena to the Mountain View company and demanded all the details about a user nicknamed ECOtotal. After the parent firm managed to identify him, the YouTube member was taken to the court, being sued by Fox for distribution of pirated material owned by the media company.