This is the best news I have heard for a long time
http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-340.htmlGermany's entertainment industry hit a roadblock in their legal battle against P2P downloads late last week when a local court decided that there is no legal basis for criminal cases against file sharing users. The Offenburg-based court decided that prosecutors cannot order a ISP to give them the real name of a P2P user simply because that user shared a few MP3s without the permission of rights holders.
The court's decision questioned the actual damages of P2P downloads to record labels, arguing that people would download songs for free that they would probably never buy.
It also argued that the industry cannot prove intent in light of P2P software that tricks or forces people into redistributing their downloads. Finally, it raised questions about the double lawsuit strategy of the industry, stating that this might be a ploy to get access to data that it wasn't supposed to get in the first place.
After watching the abuse of this kind of legal case in US courts its refreshing to see a court make clear that a
civil offence is not a criminal one, lets hope all the cases put forward by the copyright mafia are thrown in the bin, this will benefit all German taxpayers as they are the ones forking out Millions of Euros in speculative criminal investigations and court cases, all put forward by Multi-Billion dollar media corporations at no cost to themselves and purely to obtain a name and address that the Judge has decided they are not entitled to obtain.
Lets all enjoy this fine Judgement
