European court decided that p2p users should remain anonymous

European users have received huge legislative support. Recently, a European court confirmed that EU laws do not allow anyone to disclose personal information of people sharing files with Internet providers.

The largest Spanish operator, Telefonica, has successfully proved that the law only requires such information to be provided if the user is involved in a criminal offense, and the exchange of music is governed by civil law.

The European Court agreed with the operator Telefonica, during its disagreements with the Spanish association of rightholders Promusicae. To launch the civil process, Promusicae asked Telefonica for the names of users who allegedly violated copyrights using KaZaA.

The court declared : “The laws of the European Community do not oblige Member States to guarantee the effective protection of a copyright to provide obligations for the disclosure of personal data in civil proceedings.”
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This ruling is a huge victory for European users of file-sharing networks, whose anonymity is now protected by a decision of the European Court. For providers, this is also a great relief and they can calmly devote their time and efforts to their users, and not against them.

This is the beginning of change for file sharing in the EU. Last week it was reported that in Switzerland, the Commissioner for Information Protection criticized the badly known software Logistep, which is used to violate the anonymity of users of p2p networks. And before that, the Greens EFA organization launched a campaign called “I'm not going to steal.”

via torrentfreak