A court in Holland has ruled in favour of the country's anti-piracy group BREIN and has ordered Dutch internet service provider UPC to reveal the identity of a suspected illegal file sharer.
This is possibly an important decision because, as previously reported, the courts in Holland, unlike those in many other countries, including the US and UK, have generally been unwilling to force ISPs to reveal the identities of their customers, even when suspected of illegal file sharing (and if ISPs do not reveal those identities, it is impossible for the content owners to pursue legal action against the file sharers).
The Dutch courts have taken that line because of concerns that tactics used by the content owners to identify suspected file sharers violate individuals' privacy rights. In particular, in July 2005 a Dutch court ruled an internet service provider did not have to reveal the identities of suspected downloaders, because it was felt that US based MediaSentry, who had gathered the information required to prove any copyright infringement had been committed, had not operated within European privacy laws.
However, according to Reuters, in the latest case a Dutch judge has ruled that it is acceptable to force an ISP to reveal identities of individuals providing the content owners can prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that a copyright infringement has taken place, and that the alleged infringer is a "registered customer" with the ISP.