The Supreme Court has upheld a ruling last October 3 IP addresses are personal data , and therefore subject to the protection of the Organic Law on Data Protection ( LOPD). Therefore rejects the claim of music producers to collect data from users of P2P sharing networks without consent.
The judgment dismissed an appeal Promusicae, an association that brings together the music industry , from a judgment of the High Court 2011 which stated the same: IP addresses are personal data and can not violate his protection to protect the right intellectual property. The High Court considers, like the Court, that “IP addresses are personal data”, as they contain information concerning individuals “identified or identifiable”.
The case starts when the music industry decides to hire the services of the company DtecNet Software to sweep nets exchanges peer (P2P) and identify those internet users who downloaded files are protected -from a list provided by the industry itself album- massively. So once those users identified from their IP addresses, could act against them for violation of intellectual property.
In 2009, Promusicae asked the Spanish Agency for Data Protection (AEPD) rely on Article 5.5 of the LOPD for not informing users that the IP addresses are recababa, something that required by law in the case of the processing of personal data except in exceptional cases, which includes the aforementioned Article 5 itself. However, Data Protection ruled against this claim and Promusicae- appealed to the High Court, which in turn dismissed the appeal.
Personal Data
The Supreme affects several reasons to shelve the appeal brought by Promusicae. For starters, remember that IP addresses do have to be treated as personal data “as contain information concerning individuals ‘identified or identifiable.’”
“No doubt, from the IP address can be identified directly or indirectly interested in the identity of” the Supreme argues, “because internet access providers have proof of names, telephone and other data identification of users that
also considers the High Court, as Promusicae argues that it is impossible to carry out the work inform users each each processing of data, something which both the High Court and the Supreme consider that has not been sufficiently tested.
Also, this judgment of the Supreme tomb the industry argument that users make available of their free public IP address and voluntarily for the sake of using these services P2P downloads. Thus, the judgment held that “ can not be equated knowledge by the owner that your IP address is visible on P2P networks, with your consent for automated processing with other data from your traffic. ” Remember the Supreme consent “may be implied, but in any case, must be unequivocal.”
“The fact that a user of P2P network know that your IP address is visible and can be known “argues the Supreme Court,” does not mean to accept unequivocally the use and treatment by others, or to consent specifically the processing of data sought by the appellant. “
Legitimate interest ‘
The ruling calls into question further in order to obtain the IP address by Promusicae in this case, as well as its “legitimate interest”. So, remember “the special protection granted by the legislature to the linked data communication over the Internet” and states that “it is not possible to provide IP addresses to a private entity,” such as the appellant, that “not even consideration of the management entity for the purposes of assessing the proposed use of the data download of phonograms and films. “
” The protection of intellectual property rights, which is the basis of what is intended by the appellant institution, deserves all the respect in this room, “says the Supreme,” but it can not be done on the basis of violating rights, which also deserve protection, such as those derived from data protection (understood in a much broader sense than simply privacy). “
No comments:
Post a Comment