THE HAGUE, 28/06/08 - Any Dutch person who downloads protected songs, films or software via the Internet is breaking the law, Het Financieele Dagbad reported Friday. The newspaper based this on a verdict of the district court in The Hague.

"This is the first time a Dutch judge has characterised the unauthorised downloading of copyright-protected material for private use as illegal. This week's verdict is diametrically opposed to the position of the government. It has always tolerated downloading for private use," according to the newspaper.

In the Netherlands, producers of blank media carriers such as empty DVDs remit a levy to the creative industry, to allow the copyrighted artists to receive some compensation for the downloading from the Internet. The producers found the levy too high, and therefore brought a court case against management organisation Home Copying Foundation, which distributes the levies among the copyright holders.

The judge in The Hague has now however ruled that the downloading is illegal. It comes as a great surprise that the court expressed itself emphatically about the illegality of copying in the verdict, according to Het Financieele Dagblad. Lawyer Arnout Groen, an expert in the area of copyright, spoke in the newspaper of "a really shocking verdict."

The government has up to now assumed that only distribution of unauthorised material to third parties was illegal. The downloading itself was seen as private use and permitted. According to Groen, this view has now been killed and record companies will be "ecstatic" about the verdict.

Groen: "It is a matter of waiting for the first case to be brought before a court against a downloader. Everyone who just downloads a little song is infringing copyright," according to the latest verdict. But there can still be an appeal against the verdict.