The High Court has quashed a Data Protection Commissioner enforcement notice that ordered Eircom to stop operating a system used with record companies to respond to alleged online copyright infringement.
The dispute followed an error in late 2010 when Eircom failed to adjust its systems for the change from summer to winter time. As a result, 391 subscribers were wrongly notified that copyright material had been uploaded through their internet connections.
The system had operated since August 2010 under a settlement between Eircom and EMI Records Ireland, Sony Music Entertainment Ireland, Universal Music Ireland and Warner Music Ireland. The record companies supplied Eircom with an allegedly infringing work, time and temporary IP address. Eircom identified the subscriber internally and issued warnings. After repeated infringements, service could ultimately be withdrawn.
Following a subscriber complaint, the Data Protection Commissioner directed Eircom to cease the protocol, stop processing subscriber data under it and erase data already held.
Mr Justice Charleton held first that judicial review was properly brought by the record companies even though Eircom had a statutory appeal available. The companies were not automatically parties to that appeal and the Commissioner's earlier stance had complicated their participation.
More decisively, section 10(4)(a) of the Data Protection Acts required an enforcement notice to specify why the Commissioner believed the law had been breached. The judge found that the notice contained "no reasons whatsoever". That failure alone invalidated it.
The court also rejected the apparent proposition that participation by record companies in public peer-to-peer file-sharing networks to identify IP addresses necessarily infringed privacy. It held that European law required a balance between copyright, privacy, communication and business rights rather than automatic priority for one side.
The enforcement notice was quashed. Questions of any appeal, costs and a possible stay were left for further submissions.