High Court to hear application for disclosure of filesharer's identities

The application for disclosure will be held this Friday (8th July). The hearing is open to the public, so feel free to come along if you're interested in learning more about the privacy / online anonymity / data protection issues.

The case (2005 2014P EMI RECORDS IRELAND LIMITED V EIRCOM LTD) is in the Commercial List so it should be before Mr Justice Kelly in Court 9 (in the main Four Courts building) at 10.30.

From the Irish Times (subscription only):

The High Court was told yesterday that Eircom and BT are not opposing the "substantive" proceedings by four music companies aimed at securing the names of persons who have uploaded thousands of music tracks onto file-sharing networks.

The proceedings could lead to actions for damages being brought against those persons.

Yesterday, while not opposing the action, John Gordon SC for BT Communications Ireland Limited said he wanted to make submissions as to how the court should exercise its discretion regarding the form of order in the case. It is believed those submissions will relate to how the rights of the music companies should be balanced against consumers.

[...]

Mr Gordon said he proposed to file an affidavit by tomorrow for the purposes of assisting the court as to how its should exercise its discretion in the matter.

His client was not opposing the proceedings, but believed the submissions would assist the court in exercising its discretion in the correct manner in relation to how consumers were affected.

Edited to add: ENN reports on this story also.