Top EU Court To Consider If Copyright Is More Important Than Privacy
from the what's-more-important? dept
Back in November last year, Walled Culture reported on the shocking opinion by a top EU court advisor that copyright was more important than privacy. The case in question was brought by four French associations for the protection of rights and freedoms on the Internet (La Quadrature du Net, the Federation of Associative Internet Access Providers, the Franciliens.net and the French Data Network), and concerned the “High Authority for the dissemination of works and the protection of rights on the Internet” (Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur internet – the infamous HADOPI). The latter has a large database of personal information that it uses to police copyright’s intellectual monopoly in France, and it is one of the main villains in the Walled Culture book (free digital versions available). Euractiv reports that La Quadrature du Net is challenging this approach at the Court of Justice of the European Union, the EU’s top court, on the grounds that it is incompatible with the main EU privacy laws:
The group considers this practice contrary to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive, the two EU laws defining Europe’s data protection regime.
Hadopi was France’s former national anti-piracy regulator, which as of the beginning of 2022, merged with media regulator CSA to form Arcom, the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication.
This is an important case, because it will clarify whether copyright infringement can be considered a “serious crime” that trumps privacy concerns and allows general online surveillance of the public despite the region’s privacy laws. In bringing the case, La Quadrature du Net naturally hopes that data protection laws will not be trampled upon so easily, and that the EU’s top court will affirm copyright’s relative lack of importance in the grand scheme of things, but nothing is certain. Euractiv writes:
A new legal opinion to inform the EU Court’s plenary session is expected on 28 September 2023, and the Court’s ruling by the end of the year.
Something to look forward to, then – or to dread.
Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon. Originally posted to the Walled Culture blog.
Filed Under: cjeu, copyright, hadopi, privacy
Companies: la quadrature du net
Comments on “Top EU Court To Consider If Copyright Is More Important Than Privacy”
anti-piracy, more like anti-privacy if they go that route
Subpoenas are common and they don’t always limit the scope to just infringers.
History has shown that copyright holders want ALL of the community’s data just to go after a few. The same happened with callmenoneybags.
It should be that each person included in the scope must have proof of infringement, not get their information first regardless of any proof. You don’t get their PIs first “just in case if that person is a criminal”.
Re: typo
Really hate typing on my iphone, it is actually “CallMeMoneyBags”.
Can I ask?
Who gets paid by Whom, to protect them from those stealing/Using copy written materials?
Whose Lawyers get involved and take 90% of the money in these cases?
Any fool willing to trade protecting privacy for protecting copyright deserves to have neither privacy nor copyrights.
Re:
We all deserve privacy but what horrible sin did we commit to end up living under copyright?
Re: Re:
Letting it be sold to corporations.
Re: Re:
Unfortunately, existing is the sin.
Re: Re:
The sin we comitted was being literate and having easy access to materials to read and write with. Copyrights were made by the crown in the wake of the printing press to prevent the masses from distributing knowledge and ideas the kings and queens and other nobles and wealthy people could not benefit from/would be directly harmed by.
Their purpose has not changed to this day… It’s all about restricting what we are allowed to say and see, as you can see with DMCA abuse that permeates everything online these days.
Here’s what the top EU court should consider: the IP addresses of the RIAA, the Vatican, the MPAA were at various points found to be downloading music and movies. It’s only a matter of time before the top EU court’s IP addresses get implicated, or the IP address of one of their relatives – in the same way that Edgar Bronfman, then CEO of Warner Music, admitted that his son probably violated copyright law by downloading music, just like many of the teenagers the RIAA was suing on Bronfman’s behalf.
In those days Bronfman insisted to media that he’d personally ensured his son was duly “punished” – likely with a limp slap over the wrist with a wet noodle – but with how much the EU values privacy, a stern warning won’t be enough to satisfy the public. At the very least there’ll have to be an investigation even if such an implication was spoofed. The antipiracy and privacy laws are going to have to fight it out, and it won’t be pretty.
Sure, it’s likelier that people in power abuse their privilege to handwave away any meaningful consequence, but that’d just make the whole system as unenforceable as HADOPI was. My guess is it might not even get off the ground, in the same way that Article 13/17 can’t even be implemented with or without its Schrodinger’s mandatory filters.
Considering Europe’s track record…
Brace for the worst.
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Nice Post