The fight against piracy in Europe has reached what will perhaps be the greatest milestone in its history. This may be about to change, with the latest decision from the Commercial Court number 8 of Barcelona, which allows identify pirate users and apply fines for using IPTV to watch pirated football.
Every new law created by governments to block pirated content has one thing in common: attack those who pirate content, not those who consume it. However, this historic decision may have serious consequences for all Spanish Internet users who access pirated content, who could begin to receive fines and sanctions for this.
Users would become the main focus rights holders, after years of closing web pages and servers offering pirated content. The hope of sports organizations is that the problem of piracy in Europe will thus be solved once and for all, taking a step that even the toughest countries against piracy, such as Italy, have not taken until now.
Fines for watching pirated IPTV
The content of the order of the Commercial Court number 8 of Barcelona was published by Marca, and gives the “green light” to take legal action against users who watch football using unofficial services.
The great obstacle to this type of action has always been the need to identify offenders; something that could be illegal under European law. This situation became clearer last September, however, when the Advocate General of the European Union published an opinion in which he considered that Identification of pirate users did not violate their fundamental rights
Although it has not been confirmed whether this opinion was a determining factor for the Barcelona Commercial Court when making this decision, it is obvious that it helps. It is not in vain that the Court has given free rein to the rights holders to obtain a series of personal data which can used to identify anonymous Internet users.
Concretely, operators will now be required to provide the following data:
- The IP address assigned to the user by the operator.
- The first and last name of the owner who subscribed to the Internet access service.
- Postal address of line installation and billing.
- Identification document (DNI, NIE).
In Europe, the operators who must provide the data will be Vodafone, Orange, MásMovil, Digi and Telefónica. Once these companies have accepted and provided the data to demanding companies, they can start initiating the necessary processes. The process could take just a few days.
In other words, now Spanish Internet users They may receive letters at their home asking for money. for watching pirate football at home. An extreme that until recently seemed impossible in Europe, but which is not really a new idea in Europe; In Italy, the new law imposes fines of up to 5,000 dollars, although at the moment this procedure has not been launched.