2,999 songs, 199 flicks: magic in Germany
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- German police appear to have had enough of doing Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s dirty work for them.
It’s also good news for German taxpayers who, without their knowledge or consent, have been footing the bill.
“Law enforcement officials from several German states have told local press in recent days that they won’t pursue the vast majority of file sharing lawsuits anymore,” says P2P Blog, going on:
“A spokesperson of the state prosecutor of Nort-Rhine Westphalia told the online magazine jetzt.de earlier this week that P2P users won’t have to fear any lawsuits if they don’t share files on a ’substantial, commercial’ level.”
Says TorrentFreak »»»
During the last few years the legal climate in Germany has become more and more weighted against file-sharers, with hundreds of thousands receiving threats of legal action. Based on information gathered by anti-p2p tracking outfits, an offense is reported which the public prosecution service is obliged to investigate due to the fact that copyright infringement is a criminal issue in Germany. The ISP of the alleged infringer would then be forced to hand over the personal details of those accused, who would then be threatened with legal action.
Very often the legal action is not carried out but the threats are used as leverage to get ‘compensation’ from the alleged infringer to hand to the rights holder. It seems that the legal system in German has had enough of this ‘abuse’ of the criminal law system for ‘civil’ monetary gain.
In an interview with Jetzt.de, prosecutors from the Nort-Rhine Westphalia area state that those sharing files for personal, non-commercial uses, will no longer be the target of a lawsuit.
Christian Solmecke, a lawyer working at lawyers Wilde & Beuger and currently defending around 500 file-sharers against the German music industry told TorrentFreak: “That means, that the music industry in Germany has no chance to find out the real address behind an IP-address at the moment,” which is clearly a major obstacle for someone looking to take legal action.
The dividing line between personal file-sharing and commercial file-sharing needs to be defined clearly under the law, and the prosecutors have gone some way in offering this definition. “The guidelines say that no investigation should be done if the damage is lower than 3000 Euros (approx $4,500),” Christian told us.
“The guideline says that the damage of trading one song is 1 Euro ($1.50). That means, that you could have 2999 Files on your computer and the prosecutors will not investigate.”
Adds the story:
“Should this decision spread around Germany, P2P tracking outfits such as Logistep AG and the German company Digiprotect will have to look elsewhere to make up their revenue.”
Stay tuned.
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.Stumble It!
P2P Blog -It’s official: File sharing becomes a crime without punishment in Germany, August 13, 2008
TorrentFreak -Sharing 2999 Songs, 199 Movies Becomes ‘Safe’ in Germany, August 14, 2008
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August 14th, 2008 at 11:56 am
JOn, you are right that logistep and co must look for other ways to get revenue, but that is not due to the decision by the Oberstaatsanwälte in NRW.
If I remembr correctly it is that from september on those lawyers that make moeny out of piracy can only demand 100 euro maximum for the so called Abmahnung (the cease and decist letters the MAFIAA lawyers send once they get the name out from the files that the DAs must create once these lawyers file a criminal complaint for copyrightinfringement.
So even if the DAs now say in case of petty crime we don’t ask the ISP anymore for the name of the account holder behind an IP, these MAFIAA vulture lawyers like Clemens Rasch with its Pro Media GmbH in Hamburg will have to use the “civilian information intitlement” right to get the name where he can sent his money demand.
But non the less it is good to see resoning in those DAs that they don’t want to treat petty criminals that are compareable to kids stealing chewing gum in the supermarket like hardcore criminals with search warrants and the impounding of the whole computer system like it was the case so far when MAFIAA accused a german internet account holder.
This petty crime handling was specificly refused by the mafiaa bought politicos in berlin after that those vultures insisted that even schoolkids must be treated like hardcore criminals for the betterment of this MAFIAA guys that harm society with their greed!
August 14th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Hey A_F:
“you are right that logistep and co must look for other ways to get revenue, but that is not due to the decision by the Oberstaatsanwälte in NRW”
I was quoting the TF post.
Cheers!
August 14th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
k,
my fault then, will post on TF then