The current court battle between the Dutch government and ShareConnector has taken an interesting turn now that the Dutch court wants to speak with prosecutors regarding a few peculiar circumstances of the case.
Prior to forced shutdown in 2004, ShareConnector was one of a few major peer-to-peer index sites available for eDonkey clients -- but it has been tied up in civil and criminal court ever since. The company was cleared of criminal complaints in 2007, but the case has been appealed by the Department of Justice.
As reported by TorrentFreak, the Court of The Hague plans to reopen the case, and has called upon public prosecutors to discuss the case. The Netherlands has laws in place that will direct copyright infringement cases to civil court -- except if the case is deemed severe enough to warrant criminal prosecution, which wasn't the case for ShareConnector.
"After the closure of the investigation and deliberations, it appeared that the investigation was not complete," the court noted in a statement. Specifically, prosecutor R. Smits will have to explain "under which facts and circumstances the public prosecutor decided to apply criminal proceedings against the suspects based on the law intellectual property fraud."
Multiple countries now face copyright-related issues in their courts, but court systems are still trying to adjust to the influx in cases. It's curious that the court wants to the prosecutor to come back and explain why it ended up in criminal court, as this could be the beginning of the end.
The ShareConnector news release ends by noting that the legal case could be closed as the "terribly unjust raids and lack of genuine investigation" comes to an end.
