Euskaltel hits back after movie outfit targets P2P IP addresses

Spanish regional cable operator Euskaltel has issued a complaint against film production outfit Venice PI LLC for an alleged breaching data protection legislation after fighting a Bilbao court’s order to hand over IP addresses of people who allegedly shared the content of a movie produced by Venice.

Euskaltel filed a complaint with the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) for a possible breach of rules after customers received emails from Venice demanding payment of €150 within five days to avoid legal action over pirating its movie.

Euskaltel said that such a sue of customer data represented an infraction of data protection law.

The Bilbao commercial court had ruled that Euskaltel had to make the IP addresses of customers who had shared the Bruce Willis vehicle Once Upon a Time in Venice available via peer-to-peer.

Euskaltel has said that at no time did it identify the owners of the IP addresses as being responsible for any intellectual property infringement, and that the use made of the data by Venice therefore represented a violation.

The Basque Country-based operator said that data provided to comply with a ruling related to preliminary proceedings did not mean that the offended party was free to do what it pleased with this data.

Venice PI LLC has form in this area, having previously issued subpoenas against a number of leading US ISPs requiring them to share customer data over file-sharing of Once Upon a Time in Venice two years ago.