In what is being called a compromise, five major Dutch Internet service providers have agreed to help crack down on illegal online file swapping by sending warnings to suspect clients.
The five agreed to forward letters from the Netherlands’ entertainment industry representative, the Brain Institute, warning their subscribers that swapping copyrighted music online without paying for the files is against the law, according to published reports which added the five ISPs had refused to give the institute the names or addresses of the suspect clients.
"This is a service,” Maaike Scholten, spokeswoman for two of the ISPs, HetNet and Planet Internet, to reporters, “a warning to clients that they are doing things that are against the law." She added the ISPs hope the warnings will cool illegal file swapping and keep their customers out of the courts.
One major Dutch ISP isn’t joining in the cooperative effort. “They never even asked us,” said XS4ALL spokeswoman Judith van Erven, whose company was in the news earlier this month for demanding the Dutch government foot the bill if they wanted ISPs to provide the means of eavesdropping on customers’ e-mail or instant message conversations.
“I guess they know where we stand,” van Erven told reporters, referring to XS4ALL’s position that they’re no more the police force of the entertainment world than they are a free wiretapping service for the government.
Brain Institute director Tim Kuik said the group would use the ISPs’ letters to demand downloaded pay for music and other material they were getting free on the P2P networks. “We’ll see what happens to them if they don’t pay,” he warned, though he didn’t suggest how much the Brain Institute might demand as compensation.
Over two years ago, setting a world precedent, the Dutch Supreme Court held that peer-to-peer software programs were legal, even if it didn’t rule concurrently that individual P2P users couldn't be prosecuted for swapping unpaid-for copyrighted works.
