Several newspapers are reporting that Austria’s largest provider, Telekom Austria is working together with LF LAW, a law firm located in Vorarlberg. LF LAW represents some German porn producers and is serving notice to Austrian P2P users who are customers of Telekom Austria and where sharing porn. All this is resulting in automated warning letters with a 790 bucks price tag. Affected are eDonkey users – and I thought eWhatever is dead.
It is recommended to write a cease-and-desist declaration to LF LAW and not to pay the 790 bucks in first place.
Salzburg judge Franz Schmidbauer states
“Wenn jemand Auskunft gibt, dann gibt er freiwillig Auskunft”, sagte der Salzburger Richter Franz Schmidbauer, der die Website Internet4Jurists betreibt, zu ORF.at. Seiner Meinung nach besteht derzeit keine zivilrechtliche Auskunftspflicht für Provider.
“If someone provides information, then that happens voluntarily”, Salzburg judge Franz Schmidbauer, who is running the website Internet4Jurists said to ORF.at. In his opinion there is no duty for internet providers to give information according to civil law.
But it’s not about porn. It’s about data privacy. And a provider providing sensitive information to a company that writes letters to the bill payers. So if you love porn, your Grandma is paying for your internet access and she is customer of the Telekom Austria you should consider
- using Youporn, or
- kicking eDonkey and switch to the Bittorrent network.
