Odex has won its appeal against PacNet, who now has to cough up the details of the downloaders who obtained anime titles off Bit Torrent. Previously, the District Judge had held that because PacNet owes a duty of confidentiality to its customers, Odex had to show an “extremely strong prima facie case” of wrongdoing before it could obtain the names of the downloaders.

Justice Woo Bih Li overturned that. He was of the view that, on principle, making a disclosure pursuant to a court order could not amount to a breach of confidentiality. He also noted that the actual copyright holders of the anime titles had joined Odex as plaintiffs in this suit, and therefore the plaintiffs had a right to the names of the downloaders.

[Full judgment available here, though I’m not sure for how long.]

So we’re at this sad, sad state of affairs. On the one hand, the law is clearly correct. O[...]