Friday, December 22, 2006

French Court Outlaws Pretext P2P Searches Like Those Performed by MediaSentry

International Herald Tribune reports:

French court favors personal privacy over piracy searches
By Thomas Crampton
Published: December 21, 2006

PARIS: A French court has ruled that music companies and other copyright holders cannot conduct unrestrained Internet monitoring to find pirates.

The decision, which could leave record companies open to lawsuits in France for invasion of privacy, pits European Union-sanctioned data protection rules against aggressive tracing tactics used by the music and film industry.

"The judge's decision defends the privacy of individuals over the intrusion from record labels," said Aziz Ridouan, president of the Association of Audio Surfers, a group that defends people charged with illegal downloading. "This should send a strong message and hopefully affect every one of the hundreds of people defending themselves."

Complete article

Thanks to Christian Alberdingk Thijm, Esq., of Amsterdam, for the heads up on this article.
-R.B.

Commentary & discussion:

Howard Knopf on p2pnet

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Keywords: digital copyright online download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

3 comments:

StephenH said...

I commend the french court. I think that the music industry is invading privacy, and running searches without a warrant, and using poor forensics to get "guilty until proven innocent".

Anonymous said...

Finally, a court with some common sense and the guts to go against these money moguls!

raybeckerman said...

The courts of the Netherlands and Canada have stood up to them as well.