Supreme Court orders new hearings in internet piracy case

The Supreme Court has abolished a lower court verdict according to which an internet pirate would have to pay eleven million crowns in compensation for illegally downloading 372 films and 33 CDs onto file hosting servers for general use. The Supreme Court said it was not possible to set the amount of compensation to be paid by simply multiplying the price of the product by the given number of downloads because this did not reflect the real damages caused to copyright owners. Rene Rozmahel who was ordered to pay this sum by the Brno Municipal Court appealed the verdict on the grounds that it was an exemplary rather than just punishment.