Ur ett pressmeddelande från EU-domstolen:
»The systematic registration of IP addresses of users and the communication of their names and postal addresses to the holder of intellectual property rights or to a third party in order to enable an action for damages to be brought is permissible under certain conditions.
The request for information from a holder of intellectual property rights is not to be abusive and must be justified and proportionate.«
Man utvecklar resonemanget om speciella förutsättningar (certain conditions):
»In the third place, the Court holds that EU law does not preclude, in principle, the systematic registration, by the holder of intellectual property rights or by a third party on his or her behalf, of IP addresses of users of peer-to-peer networks whose internet connections have allegedly been used in infringing activities (upstream processing of data), or the communication of the names and of postal addresses of users to that holder or to a third party for the purposes of an action for damages (downstream processing of data). However, initiatives and requests in that regard must be justified, proportionate, not abusive and provided for by a national legislative measure which limits the scope of rights and obligations under EU law. The Court states that the latter does not impose an obligation on a company such as Telenet to communicate personal data to private individuals in order to be able to bring proceedings before the civil courts for copyright infringements. However, EU law allows Member States to impose such an obligation.«
Detta kommer förmodligen att öka antalet ekonomiska krav från upphovsrättsindustrin och dess ombud mot fildelare. Och det kommer säkert att öka användningen av VPN-tjänster.