Anti-piracy law test case sent to EU Court

[p2p rules]

The first case tried since the passage of Sweden's anti-file sharing law (Ipred) in April 2009 is heading for the EU Court of Justice after a ruling by the Supreme Court.

This issue concerns a case between five audiobook publishers and the Swedish ISP ePhone which appealed a lower court ruling ordering the firm to hand over information about the users connected to certain IP-addresses.

"It is heartening that the Supreme Court has taken this decision and that the Ipred law will now come under the scrutiny of the EU Court of Justice," said ePhone's lawyer, Peter Helle, to the Dagens Nyheter daily on Thursday.

The Swedish Supreme Court (Högsta Domstolen - HD) in June requested the parties involved to submit their view on whether it is necessary to send the matter for a preliminary ruling to the European Court - decision which was interpreted by experts as a victory for ePhone and taken to mean that the case would head for Luxembourg, a process that can take years.

It was thus no real surprise when on Thursday the Supreme Court made it formal ruling.

thelocal