Filtering file sharing breaches human rights eu court rules

One of the main weapons in the record industry’s arsenal against illegal file-sharing has been struck down by the EU’s top court as a breach of fundamental rights. The European Court of Justice ruled on Thursday (24 November) that internet service providers (ISPs) cannot be be forced to filter internet traffic and block users from trading copyright music or other files, as to do so undermines privacy rights and the ability of people to freely exchange information. … “EU law precludes the imposition of an injunction by a national court which requires an internet service provider to install a filtering system with a view to preventing the illegal downloading of files,” the court decided. … The principles laid down in just a few lines in one of the paragraphs in the judgment are so strong that it will take a lot for states, which in recent years have increasingly embraced efforts to have ISPs police the internet, to move forward with the strategy they have placed their bets on. “It pretty much fatally wounds the very strong effort on the part of governments to privatise law enforcement,” Joe McNamee, the director of European Digital Rights, told EUobserver. … The EU has also been attempting to export this very ‘law-enforcement privatization’ model to other countries—McNamee argued—via the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a global anti-piracy treaty that aims to set up a global intellectual property framework with its own governing body akin to the World Trade Organization. ACTA, criticized for being negotiated largely in secret, has long been the bête noire of online civil liberties advocates. … (Excerpt) Read more at euobserver.com …