PC World have run an article reporting that a Dutch court
has dismissed a case brought by Dutch anti-piracy group BRIEN, saying that privacy
laws protecting bank account holders are more important than providing
information to identify potential defendants in an alleged copyright infringement caase. The ruling by the
Amsterdam district court favoured ING Bank, saying that that the bank does not
have to reveal who has access to a bank account, whose number is posted on the
website FTD World
PC World explain
“FTD World, at ftdworld.net, is a Usenet-indexing website
that lists links to binary files posted on Usenet. It also provides files in
the NZB format listing that allows users to download the posted files more
easily. By doing this, the site provides access to copyrighted entertainment
files including books, movies, music, games, and software without the
permission of the copyright holders, according to Dutch anti-piracy foundation
BREIN.”
Unsurprisingly BREIN, which represents authors, artists,
publishers, producers and distributors of music, film, games, interactive
software and books, wanted the court to force ING to reveal who is behind a
bank account and was receiving donations made via the site: BREIN had previously
been unable to track down the domain name registrant and had received no reply
to a letter sent to the Russian hosting provider. The only information BREIN
had was that the bank account number belonged to a woman, identified only as
"[F]" by the court, who was born in 1927 (so was an unlikely 90 year
old file sharing platform owner) and who had moved to Suriname in 2009. ING admitted that someone else was authorized to use
the account on the woman's behalf, but added that Dutch data protection law
prevented the bank from revealing this person's or persons' identity. The Bank, however, did
reveal that the women's debit card was used for cash withdrawals in the
northern part of Amsterdam between February 4 and February 18. BREIN had asked
the court to order revelation of any other names, phone numbers, email
addresses, and postal addresses linked to the bank account.
In dismissing BREIN's claims, the court noted that ING were not instrumental in the alleged copyright infringement by FTD World, and only
provides bank transactions, which are not essential to the potenttail copyright
infringements, with Judge Sj.A. Rullmann saying "There is no relationship
between ING Bank and copyright infringement" and put the onus on BREIN to so more to trace the person behind the site, noting that BREIN didn't even try to write to the
woman attempt to trace her. Judge Rullmann held that all bank clients
should be able to trust their banks, and client data should only be communicated
in very exceptional circumstances. Further IF that data should be shared, it
should be into ‘safe hands’. The Judge
did note that BREIN could also have filed a criminal complaint.
BREIN were ordered to pay £1,800 (€2,100) t cover ING's costs (litigation fees).
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