Association of Dutch movie and TV producers filed a lawsuit against the local government in the attempt to hold it responsible for the high piracy rates in the Netherlands. The copyright owners claim that the government tolerated and even facilitated illegal downloading and now demand compensation.
The Netherlands stands out of the other countries due to the fact downloading pirated music has been legal under local legislation until recently. Things changed only in 2014, when the European Court of Justice ruled it unlawful, and the Dutch government amended its law related to illegal downloading. However, even now the piracy rates remain high, which can’t make local entertainment industries happy. As a result, local moviemakers and distributors have accused the government of failing to do enough to counter piracy and threatened it with legal action.
In response, the authorities denied these allegations, saying that the copyright owners could pursue downloaders directly if they want to compensate for their losses. However, the entertainment industry decided to go for a legal action: the moviemakers hope to hold the government liable through the court and get compensation for damages.
The lawyers say that the plaintiffs will have to demonstrate that they have suffered financial loss. Besides, it is unclear how to estimate the scale of the damages since a pirate download doesn’t directly translate to a lost sale. Anyway, the claimed compensation will amount to an enormous amount of money – for example, the film industry group VPSO already asked for $1.27 bn in damages for piracy losses in 2016.
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