Thursday, June 16, 2005

Dutch watchdog seeks court action to track down internet pirates

An AFP newswire article on Yahoo! News reports:

An internet piracy watchdog has called on the Dutch judicial authorities to force five internet access providers to hand over personal data on people downloading music and films on a large scale.

The five internet providers in question -- UPC (UGC), Wanadoo (France Telecom) Tiscali, KPN and Essent Kabelcom -- have refused to hand over the data the Brein Foundation needs to identify on the pirates, saying this would be a breach of privacy.

Brein says that music and film piracy on the internet bleeds the music, film and software industry in the Netherlands of 176 million euros (213 million dollars) a year.

Brein says it has managed to track down a number of surfers who club together to download large quantities of music and films on the internet. However, it has only managed to identify their address -- IP -- which is linked to the computer of one of the subscribers.

Only 41 have responded to an email ordering them to identify themselves.

The organisation wants to make contact so that it can impose a fine or take legal proceedings against the pirates.


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