June 12, 2009

Data protection helps pirates

It looks like the various data protection acts around the EU could be saving the illegal file sharers or pirates as the industry like to call them, from prosecution.

The case in example is Norway, its data protection laws state that internet service providers have to delete all data that is recorded against an IP address no later than three weeks after collecting it.

This means that any pay up or else threat from the copyright holder’s lawyers, without this data any threat of legal action will be pointless.

However, under EU law the ISP’s are required to hold on to data for at least six months. This is yet another case of the EU passing a rule that some member states simply ignore in order to keep to their own rules.

Source [Torrent Freak]