An Epic Win For The Danish.. and Filesharers Worldwide

Today Danish file sharers scored a major victory with the announcement that the Danish version of Anti-Pirates (Antipiratgruppen) will no longer chase pirates because:
“It requires very strong and concrete evidence to have these people convicted. We simply could not lift the burden of proof,” said Antipiratgruppen lawyer Mary Fredenslun.

Even though this did not stop the RIAA making a mockery of the law in the US for over half a decade its still a major victory for file sharers worldwide.

For years everyone with even a basic knowledge of P2P have been shouting from the rooftops that its just not possible to detect file sharers with any accuracy simply because an IP address is not unique to an individual, none the less organizations like the RIAA have extorted thousands of people victims with thousands of dollars per "settlement" in the US as well as UK.

In just a year, four cases against alleged pirates have come before the High Court in Denmark and the overall result for the copyright holders has been negative. Three of the defendants were acquitted due to insufficient evidence, and in the one case where a file-sharer was convicted, the defendant had confessed.

Defence attorney Per Overbeck says that in addition to these outcomes, cases against two of his clients have been dropped in recent years. “Antipiratgruppen has acknowledged that they can not get people convicted without either catching them in the act or threatening them to confess,” Overbeck said. “In practice, this means that without a confession there is no case,” he added. – from TF

and to quote Boing Boing:

An overview of Danish trials shows an extremely small possibility of getting sentenced – unless the the accused confesses. Four principal state court trials last year lead to three acquittals and only a single sentence for illegal file sharing. And this sentence only came into place because

“Out of the four cases we can establish, that the courts do not sentence owners of Internet connections simply because of technical identification of IP-adresses and technical recognition of files,” they say.

While some dinosaurs are going to be downright gloomy, millions of people around the world are going to be celebrating this saturday night.
Needless to say strong arming, comparisons to China and political manoeuvring will be in the works from big content, but for now people are just basking in the glory of an epic win for filesharers worldwide.

Article and discussion
Torrent Freak
BoingBoing

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