Dutch court condemns hackers for copyright infringement

Yesterday, the Rotterdam District Court dealt with a case where five men hacked computer systems of universities in the U.S., Germany and Austria in order to distribute movies, music and software illegally via a forum on a large scale.

The hackers were members of this forum, which was only accessible upon invitation and made it possible for members to upload and download copyright protected works illegally. The hackers gained access to quick computer systems and put the passwords thereof on the forum, so others could use this storage space and bandwidth to upload copyright protected content. A member could even earn points by uploading and as could download with these points.

Due to these illegal activities, the men were guilty of two criminal offenses according to Dutch law: hacking computer systems and infringing copyrights. Although copyright infringement cases are seldom handled in a criminal proceeding in The Netherlands, they are definitely criminal offenses. Anyone who intentionally violates a person's copyright, for instance through uploading without consent of the right holder, can end up in prison for 6 months. Due to the rarity of criminal proceedings regarding copyright, little jurisprudence exists in this field and therefore this verdict gives interesting guidelines for future reference.

Although the participation in the criminal activities were proven ("Participation in an organization whose purpose is to commit crimes"), the imposed penalties were not fully given. The prosecution demanded suspended sentences of three and four months and a trial period of two years, but the men were sentenced to three months suspended sentence with probation for one year.

Some of the reasons for the reduced sentence were interesting to note: the defendants did not intend "monetary gain", no privacy sensitive information was stolen or made public and no private computer systems were used. In addition, the criminal proceedings exceeded reasonable time as prescribed by art. 6 ECHR, so the sentence was reduced. According to art. 6 ECHR, a legal case should be completed within two years. This case, however, lasted almost 12 months longer than these two years.

You can read the Dutch court ruling here.

Reference: IE-forum and OM