Blow To Music Industry's Fight Against File-Sharing

While subpoenas and ex parte discovery have worked well for the RIAA in its legal fight against suspected file-sharers, the music industry in Europe looks to be facing a tougher battle. Today, an advocate general for the European Court of Justice, the highest court in the EU, released an opinion saying that ISPs are not required to disclose information that could identify subscribers in civil copyright infringement cases. The court in most cases shall stick with the advocate general's opinion although there is a slim to none chance that they may not. The originsal case involved Promusicae, a Spanish music industry association a lot like RIAA, and Spanish ISP Telefonica.

Promusicae managed to trace users of Telefonica who were sharing their music over KaZaA and then took Telefonica to court in order to force them to hand over the names and ip addresses of those who according to them were sharing their music in KaZaA. Telefonica refused to comply, saying that the law only required the ISP to turn over the information in criminal cases, not civil ones.