Entertainment Industry Seeks Slice Of EU Data Retention Pie

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

28 November 2005

The entertainment industry is calling for access to data retained under the EU's proposed data retention directive in order to fight piracy.

Plans to oblige providers of telecoms services to keep customer data for up to one year were last week approved by a parliamentary committe, and will now go before the European Council.

However, in a letter to MEPs this week, the Creative and Media Business Alliance (CMBA) argued that:

"The Directive is of major importance for our sector and we would appreciate your support in ensuring that this becomes an effective instrument in the fight against piracy."

However, speaking to ZD Net UK, executive director of the Open Rights Group, Suw Charman strongly condemned the request, observing that:

"The data retention directive was proposed to fight terrorism. As ill-conceived as the original legislation was, this should never be used to fight the music and film industries' battles at the expense of the taxpayer."

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