[Katsunami]

I've been reading about this today. This is completely absurd. IMHO, it damages a Dutch law called WBP. (Wet Bescherming Persoonsgegevens / Law to protect personal data.) It states that any institution that knows my personal data (store, sports club, etc...) has to ask my permission to pass on that data to any other institute. If someone wants to get a hold of this data without my permission, he would normally need to provide a case to the court and state why he wants access to it, what he wants to do with it, and why he can't do it without that data.

If BREIN can now just say "We found ebook X online, and it states that it is bought at your store, transaction number XYZ. Give us the data of the person that bought it", without going through court, then this is a very bad idea. Who says the book was put online by the original purchaser?

As I've stated before, in the Netherlands it is allowed to download media (ebooks, music, movies, series), as it is deemed not to be possible to determine the legality of the source, or of every single file before downloading. (I've had it happen to me that a Google link turns out to be a complete book in PDF-format, while I was just looking for some information such as reviews.) However, it is prohibited to spread or upload copyrighted material.

Still, if a file is found on the internet, it is not certain that the person linked to be the original purchaser of that file is also the uploader. It's way too easy to steal notebooks, phones, e-readers, external hard drives, USB-sticks, CD's, or whatever; in schools (college and university), many of these things are stolen each year. It's easy enough to get the files off them and spread them without the consent of the original purchaser.

In this way, the honest and original purchaser doesn't only lose his device and his files for which he has paid, he can also be dragged into court for copyright infringement. That's just ridiculous, and *ANOTHER* reason for me to *NOT* buy eBooks in Dutch stores. (Price being the most important one, let alone that I rarely read books that are originally written in Dutch. Or listen to Dutch music... or see Dutch movies...)